Juggalos figured out how to beat facial recognition

Last September, the world welcomed Juggalos (or Juggalettes, depending on which you prefer) to The Resistance when they marched on Washington en masse to protest the policies of the Trump administration. As if they weren't already doing the absolute most, the die-hard fans of the rap group Insane Clown Posse have become accidental heroes for people concerned about facial recognition tech: According to Twitter user @tahkion, a computer science blogger for WonderHowTo, Juggalo makeup outmatches the machine learning algorithms that govern facial recognition technology. In a series of follow-up tweets, @tahkion explained that facial recognition works by pinpointing the areas of contrast on a human face--for instance, where a nose is located, or where the chin becomes the neck. As it happens, juggalo makeup often involves applying black paint below the mouth, but above the chin. That makes facial recognition vulnerable to misidentifying the placement of the jaw.