Bot or real reader: 9 red flags sites track and 3 moves you must make today to avoid a hard block

Web pages keep asking if you are human. You click, you wait, you worry. The checks grow stricter and more frequent.

Publishers now police automated access, AI scraping and suspicious traffic with zeal. You feel the effects through pop-ups, blocks and warnings. Here is what sits behind those prompts, and how you can stay on the right side of the gatekeepers.

Why you keep seeing ‘are you human’ prompts

News publishers face a surge in automated traffic. Anti-bot systems watch for patterns that look machine-like. They scan click speed, page request cadence, mouse movement, IP reputation and browser signals. When something looks off, the system challenges the visitor or freezes access.

One major UK publisher sets out strict terms: no automated access, no scraping, and no text or data mining of its pages, including for artificial intelligence, machine learning or large language models. That stance captures both rogue scrapers and respectable companies testing AI tools without a licence. Human readers get swept up when systems misread their behaviour.

Automated access and text or data mining of publisher content are barred, including for AI, machine learning and LLM training. Commercial users must obtain permission first.

What triggers a false alarm

• Using a VPN, corporate proxy or shared Wi‑Fi that many users hit at once.
• Opening dozens of tabs and loading pages at high speed.
• Blocking JavaScript, cookies or trackers that anti-bot checks rely on.
• Reloading pages in quick bursts or using auto-refresh extensions.
• Running aggressive ad blockers that strip key scripts.
• Copying large chunks of text repeatedly or saving pages too fast.
• Spoofing your user agent or using privacy browsers with unusual signatures.
• Accessing from cloud servers or data centres that scrapers favour.

Any one of these can flip a switch. Combine several and you almost guarantee a challenge.

Publishers draw a line on AI scraping

Training AI on news articles without a licence has become a flashpoint. Publishers invest in newsgathering and guard the output through terms and conditions. Their position is simple: if you want to collect, analyse or mine the text at scale—whether for search, summarisation, model training or trend analysis—you need explicit permission.

This applies to both direct scraping and indirect collection via third-party services. If a crawler, a browser extension or an intermediary tool pulls content on your behalf, the responsibility still lands with you. Internal testing by a start-up, university work or a side project does not bypass the need for a licence if it involves systematic collection.

Legitimate readers can be misclassified. If you believe that happened, contact [email protected]. For commercial use and crawling permissions, email [email protected].

What to do when you are blocked

• Stop refreshing. Wait a minute, then load a single page and scroll normally.
• Disable auto-refresh tools and heavy ad blocking for that site.
• Turn off the VPN and use a known residential connection.
• Enable JavaScript and first‑party cookies, then reload the page.
• Close duplicate tabs pointing to the same domain.
• Sign in if the site supports accounts; that often lowers suspicion.
• If the block remains, contact the support address shown on the message.

How anti-bot systems judge your clicks

Anti-bot filters evaluate intent based on signals that humans seldom notice. The table below shows common behaviour and how systems might interpret it.

Your data, your rights and the grey areas

Readers often ask whether they can save articles, annotate pages or run small research projects. Personal use and normal browsing sit well within most terms. Problems start when activity becomes systematic. Pulling hundreds of pages, stitching them into a dataset or running text analysis at scale crosses into text and data mining. Publishers can opt out of such use via clear terms and technical controls.

Some laws allow limited text and data mining for research under strict conditions, yet they do not grant a free pass to train commercial AI systems on protected content. If you operate in a grey zone, seek written permission. Keep records of what you collected, when and why. Respect robots.txt directives and rate limits, but do not assume those alone grant rights to copy and process content.

What businesses and teams should do now

• Audit tools that fetch web content, including browser plugins and automation scripts.
• Seek licences for any mining, training or large‑scale analysis of news content.
• Throttle requests and use a dedicated, identified crawler when a site permits it.
• Ring‑fence testing to approved IPs and maintain logs for accountability.
• Nominate a contact point to handle takedowns, permissions and user complaints.

What this means for everyday readers

You can read the news without tripping alarms. Move at a human pace. Keep JavaScript on. Avoid privacy tools that break core page features. If you value a VPN, pick one with residential routing and a good reputation. When a site asks you to verify, complete the check once and continue normally. If the page insists you look automated, get in touch using the support email shown on the block screen.

These controls protect journalists’ work and the site’s stability. They also shape your experience. A few small changes reduce friction: sign in where possible, limit open tabs, and let the page load fully before you scroll. If you need to save an article, use built‑in features rather than third‑party grabbers.

Humans leave organic traces: varied timing, real scrolling, consistent devices. Mimic that rhythm and blocks tend to melt away.

Extra context to help you decide your next steps

Text and data mining means using software to collect content at scale and extract patterns or facts. It ranges from simple keyword counts to model training on millions of sentences. If you plan such work with news articles, you likely need a licence. Without one, a publisher may block access and demand deletion of any derived dataset.

Try a quick self‑check before you browse intensively. Ask yourself: how many pages will I open this hour? Am I using a VPN known to be crowded? Do I block scripts the site needs to verify me? Adjust your setup first. If you run a project, simulate polite behaviour: space requests by several seconds, cap parallel loads to a small number, and pause when a challenge appears. That approach keeps you reading—and keeps the alarms quiet.