b and i are not purely visual

[pentzzsolt]

The <b>, <i> vs <strong>, <em> page writes that b and i are purely visual, however, I think that is misleading.

As far as I know, these tags were repurposed in the HTML 5 specification in order to get away from the stylistic—or in other words visual—definition of those tags while also providing reasonable backwards compatibility. According to the standards, the i element:

[…]represents a span of text in an alternate voice or mood[…]

And the b element:

[…]represents a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes without conveying any extra importance and with no implication of an alternate voice or mood[…]

Whether those definitions imply extra semantic meaning or not is a good question. In my understanding they do. But I'm fairly certain that they make b and i more than purely visual.