" I am not an acrobat,
I cannot perform these tricks for you "
This post is about something that has caused me problems for many years in the online world. The constant demand to perform tasks and tricks to verify that I am human. I'm referring to the infamous reCAPTCHA verification that pops up on numerous web pages, intended to prove that you're not a robot. It's infuriating and also insulting to have to prove that you are human. Often it's just a tick box. Tick the box that says [ ] I AM NOT A ROBOT and you can proceed to access the site, or make a purchase or leave a comment. By ticking the box you validate yourself. Yaay!! You are one of us. We can be friends because you ticked the human box.
That's all well and good. But quite often reCAPTCHA doesn't let us get off so lightly. Oh no. Stop right there, my friend! You ticked the box that said you are not a robot? Prove it. Perform a task for us, and we'll analyse the results and decide if you are human. Because you could be a robot. Or an alien invader. Or an aardvark. And we don't want anyone but humans on this site. And then a task appears. It used to be things like this.
Recently it's become more sophisticated and interactive. Monkeys jumping and you have to click on the monkey that jumps the highest, which involves clicking on a moving target. Another new one is a photo of something at the top of the page and then a series of photos of items, and you have to choose which would be used with the image at the top. I had one this morning that had an image that looked like a dying star in the last moments before it collapses in on itself and then explodes in full on supernova mode. The items that I had to choose between to use with this galactic phenomenon were photocopiers and saucepans! Perhaps the image at the top wasn't a dying star after all. I don't know what it was.
Eventually it allowed me to try another task. Stacking boxes on top of other boxes. And joy of joys, I succeeded. I was a real human after all. I felt like Pinocchio when he becomes a real boy. I could proceed. Except I couldn't because It said Token Expired. I'd spent so long trying to click on a jumping monkey, figure out if I need photocopiers or saucepans when our Sun finally blows itself to smithereens, and then finally Stacking boxes carefully to validate myself to the gatekeeper of humanity, that I had timed out.
Sometimes I think it might be less painful to lop off an earlobe or fingertip and send it in the post to prove I'm human! But so many websites using ReCAPTCHA, and so few ears and fingers!
Now everyone gets a little frustrated with ReCAPTCHA and it's silly tasks. But for me, and others like me, it's more than just frustration or inconvenience. I'm neurodiverse. In my case it's autism, ADHD, dyslexia and dyspraxia. And I struggle with these tasks because of one fundamental fact.
ReCAPTCHA is discriminatory towards people who are neurodiverse. ReCAPTCHA expects to perform a series of visual tasks and complete them. And it compares our responses to those of the neurotypical majority. What it considers the behaviour of a normal person. It looks at the images selected. The time taken to select those images. If any images were clicked on, and then off again as a correction is made. And if anything deviates from it's definition of normal human patterns, it flags it as non human behaviour. Neurodiverse people don't see things in the same way as neurotypical people. So they often produce an atypical response. And as a result they get discriminated against. We have allowed a piece of software to become the gatekeeper of what is human and what is not? What is normal and what is not?
It goes beyond mere discrimination. When a neurodiverse person struggles or fails to get through the RECAPTCHA verification process, they are often left feeling inadequate, a failure and excluded from "normal" society. And that's unfair and just plain wrong. No one should feel like that because they are just trying to use a website.
This post has been prompted by an experience that I had this morning. I follow a blog, and the blogger posted about a loss in their family. I tried to comment and offer my condolences and four attempts were thwarted by ReCAPTCHA deciding that I wasn't human. In the end I succeeded and gave half arsed commiserations because I'd got fed up of typing anything more, having seen four previous, much more sincere posts get turned into digital paper shredding by ReCAPTCHA.
As well as discriminating against neurodiverse people, ReCAPTCHA is also a problem for anyone who uses software to help their online interactions, such as blind people, people with disabilities caused by conditions such as cerebral palsy or motor neurone disease.
I get that there is a need to filter out the bots from real people, to prevent scam and spam, but please find a way to be inclusive of every member of humanity. There must be a better way to beat the bots, than trampling over the atypical, but very much wanted, people in society. Society is a deeply flawed concept if it is not as broadly inclusive as possible.
I never did work out what the dying star image actually was, and if it was a dying star, whether photocopiers or saucepans would provide the best protection.
Dee
💋💋💋
Lyric quote at the top of the page, from 'Acrobat' by Maximo Park. Words by Paul Smith.
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