Most screen readers never look at the rendered screen. Instead, they get information from the browser in two ways.
And this is why anything that tries to block AI scraping will always, in every case, block screen readers. It’s not a side effect. It’s a natural outcome of the design.
How is it not a side effect? The purpose of measures to block AI scraping is to block AI scraping. If a measure has any additional effect, that’s a side effect. “Side effect” does not mean “this is negligible”.
Because a screen reader is a machine reading the content. AI is a machine reading the content. You can’t block one without blocking the other, anymore than you can invent DRM that actually works, or encryption that has a backdoor only the quote unquote good guys can use. It’s implicit in the design.
I know the effect happens but saying “this is not a side effect” seems to imply that it’s intentional.
Of course it’s intentional. Either machines can read your content, or they cannot. Those are your choices. Choosing “only the machines I agree with” is not something any design can support, and anything claiming to offer that is a liar, just like the studios that promise unbreakable DRM and the governments that promise encryption backdoors only they can use. If you try it, you’re explicitly saying that accessibility is not something you care about. Amusingly, DRM has the same issue: it, too, frequently locks out screen readers. AI blocking is just another form of DRM, when you get right down to it: it’s just another system that wants to require people to only use content in the ways the publisher agrees with. And as soon as you carve out a door for screen readers, AI scrapers can walk right through that door as well. You cannot build any gate that an AI scraper cannot pass, that a screen reader can. Because they’re both machines consuming your content.
The intention of blocking AI scrapers is not to block screen readers but to block AI scrapers. What you’re describing is a side effect, not part of the intention. What are you even saying? Why would blocking screen readers be intentional? Nobody sat down and said “I’m going to block both AI scrapers and screen readers, mwahaha.”
Yes, but it’s inherent to the design, even if that wasn’t the goal.
If you have decided not to allow machines to read your content, you have decided not to allow screen readers to read your content. The decision cannot be expressed any other way. So blocking screen readers is part of your expressed intention. Because expressing it any other way is impossible.
That’s like saying if you get chemotherapy to cure your cancer, your intention is to lose your hair and to be sick all the time.
