ShieldFont uses word-swapping fonts to slow AI scrapers
A new open-source project called ShieldFont aims to deter AI scrapers by using extended GSUB-based substitutions in OpenType fonts, making page text appear normal to human readers while delivering gibberish to automated crawlers. The font maps words through predefined pools (about 250) so about a quarter of words are swapped into semantically related, unreadable forms, complicating data ingestion without completely blocking access. While it can slow or confuse scrapers, it’s not foolproof—OCR, targeted AI that downloads the font, or other scraping methods can bypass it, and there could be SEO and accessibility drawbacks. ShieldFont is available as a demo, a React component, and CSS/CDN-ready options, with the project described as alpha and evolving.
