AI companies that scrape large portions of the public web for training data have prompted lawsuits and technical countermeasures. Designers Isaque Seneda and Gabriel Abrucio have created ShieldFont, a font that uses ligatures to replace words in the underlying HTML while displaying a readable version on screen.
Because the substitution happens only when the font engine renders the page, scrapers that download plaintext source code receive altered, nonsensical content. ShieldFont is intended as a practical opt-out from unauthorized AI training and to disrupt what is collected when that choice is ignored.
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