Sign language to translate music is all the rage on TikTok. But with its growing popularity, many deaf and hard-of-hearing creators fear that TikTok is spreading the wrong signals, reports the Washington Post.
Fashion appeared on the social network in particular among hearing creators, encouraged by the representation of sign language in films such as coda EITHER A peaceful place.
When using sign language, even seemingly minor changes, such as incorrect hand movements, can render a sign unintelligible or give it an entirely different meaning. Mistakes that have become common on social networks.
Among them, Anthony Eagle Jr., who has more than 850,000 subscribers. He performs songs in sign language. Except some of his signs are wrong. For example, when he signs the song “Simple Man”, he wants to sign the word “young”, but his body language makes him guess the word “tired”.
Another example on Scott Berend’s account that has 1 million subscribers. In a sign language rendition of the song “We Are The World”, he attempts to use the word “children” in signs, but his gesture actually has no meaning in American Sign Language.
report bugs
The problem has grown to such a point that the National Association of the Deaf has released a video criticizing this trend that propagates incorrect signs.
Hearing-impaired users reported that they tried to report bugs to the creators, but were blocked or had their comments removed.
For Ashley Noelle Russ, a deaf woman with around 40,000 followers on TikTok, the safest way to learn sign language is to do it directly from deaf people, many of whom teach the language for free on TikTok.
Deaf creators would find it harder to gain popularity on TikTok because they fear TikTok’s algorithm will favor other creators who tend to speak and use music more often in their videos.
Source: BFM TV
