A 16-year-old girl sat in the backside of the car, the car she was being abducted in. She kept looking out the car window at the other people on the road — people who could save her, to signal that she was in distress.
She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t bang against the window. She couldn’t wave her arms around and mouth “Help!”
So she started flashing hand signals, hoping others knew what they meant. She didn’t use American Sign Language, but gestures she’d learned on the social media platform TikTok.
@jessieberryberry A motorist noticed her signalling from a car and called 911. The kidnapp3r was arrested. #news #tiktoknews #foryoupage #canadianwomensfoundation Lights Are On – Tom Rosenthal
Last year, the Women’s Funding Network, a philanthropic organization dedicated to helping women and girls, created the “Signal for Help” gesture so people could communicate they were in danger without alerting those around them. The group’s video demonstrating the gesture later went viral on TikTok.
Check it out here:
@forsure7 Violence against women is a crime #canadianwomensfoundation #gethelp #womensrights #itstime #domesticabuse #domesticviolence original sound – @forsure7
“Now that … the story’s been put out, we think that people will use this … universally as a distress signal,” he said. “And … that’s great.” reports The Washington Post.
More than often we see the power of social media highlighted as accessive and mentally damaging. But there are many other reasons social media has proven itself to be useful to mankind.
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