Whack a mole is the world’s worst game, but when it comes to playing against false information, maybe we can win it together
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Let’s talk about the game whack a mole. This was an old timey arcade game where you got a padded mallet and you had to whack down a bunch of plastic moles that kept popping up randomly out of like a million different holes. I always hated this game. I didn’t enjoy the game play – what is the point of whacking these little animals? – and as far as I could tell you literally couldn’t even win!
So you can imagine, I have had a very negative opinion on the various technologies that are allegedly going to fix our problems with false information that pops up everywhere online. They all just look and feel like a glorified game of tech whack a mole.
Here is what I never even considered: collaborative. tech. whack a mole. Hear me out. And if you already know about this, my question is why didn’t you tell me.
Today I learned about the concept of “perceptual hashing”. This is basically an algorithm that will identify the core characteristics of a piece of content, so that if it pops up somewhere else, it can still be identified. Or to put it another way, it says ‘hey this is a mole’ and then tags and tracks the mole. So then, if that same mole pops up somewhere else, even if puts on like a trench coat and a mustache, an automated system can still whack it because it knows it’s a mole.
Still just whack a mole, but here’s what I think is interesting: when a bunch of different organizations identify moles together and try to whack them together, all the sudden you have not just one little mallet but a complete and fairly automated system in place that is trying to win against the moles.
As a quick aside: I’m talking here about technical and automated whack a mole, but there are also more people-centric programs that exist. My personal favorite is probably the “elves” program in Estonia and Lithuania, which has been going on for almost ten years at this point. Super inspiring, worth looking into if you’re interested.
But final thoughts on perceptual hashing, there are a lot of questions about what is or isn’t a mole, and a lot of technical challenges with the actual tagging and flagging. And also, this idea that a bunch of people can use technology to collaborate on whack a mole… that, I think, is an idea worth holding onto and exploring more fully. Thanks for listening.