Frequently Asked Questions

DeafMonitor is the first community-centered news platform built for the global Deaf and hard-of-hearing community. We aggregate, curate, and deliver news stories, videos, events, and sports coverage relevant to the Deaf world — all in one place.

Yes. DeafMonitor offers a free tier that includes access to 15 stories per feed, 6 videos per feed, the full events calendar, sports coverage, community posts, and a personalized dashboard.

For unlimited access including the full news and video archive, keyword alerts, and publishing across the community, upgrade to DeafMonitor Pro for $9.99/mo (or $99/yr — about two months free). Every new membership comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee.

Visit deafmonitor.com/register and enter your name, email, and a password. After creating your account, you will complete a brief onboarding where you select your persona (Deaf Adult, Hard of Hearing, CODA, Parent, etc.) and pick your interest categories. This personalizes your feed.

After signing in, you can complete an optional member profile at deafmonitor.com/welcome — pick the topics you care about, the sign languages you use, and your privacy defaults. If you choose interests, DeafMonitor gently prioritizes stories in those categories in your feeds and can suggest members you have things in common with.

Every field is optional. You can change or remove any of it from your dashboard at any time, and your privacy settings control who can see your profile, who can message you, and whether you appear in the member directory.

Guest: Browse up to 10 stories, 3 videos, view events and sports. No account required.

Free: 15 stories, 6 videos, bookmarks, follow partners, personalized feed, dashboard access, submit tips.

Pro ($9.99/mo or $99/yr): Unlimited stories and the full video archive, keyword alerts, advanced search and saved searches, publish on Deaf Perspectives and Handspace, create a Creator profile, one Boost credit per month, Pro badge, early access to new features.

Visit deafmonitor.com/join and click "Get Pro." Pro costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year (about two months free). Students and educators with a .edu email get Academic Pro at half price. Every new membership comes with a 7-day money-back guarantee — cancel within your first week and your first charge is refunded automatically.

Moni is DeafMonitor's built-in AI assistant. Click the Moni button in the top navigation on any page (or press Ctrl+K, Cmd+K on Mac) to open a side panel. Moni searches DeafMonitor's news, the Deaf World Wiki, the Library, events, and jobs, and answers questions about the Deaf world in plain language with linked sources.

Moni is included with every account — create a free account to start. Free accounts include 10 questions per day; Pro and Student members get a much higher daily limit. Moni is AI and can make mistakes, so check important information against the sources it links. Conversations are kept for up to 120 days to improve quality and safety.

Pro is $9.99/month or $99/year — the annual plan saves about two months. Students and educators with a verified .edu email get Academic Pro for $4.99/month or $49/year. DeafMonitor itself is always free to use; Pro adds the full archive, keyword alerts, publishing, and Boost.

Yes, anytime, from your dashboard — no email required, no retention phone calls, no questions asked. When you cancel, you keep Pro access through the end of your current billing period and your account then drops back to the free tier.

Every new membership has a 7-day money-back guarantee. If you cancel within 7 days of your first charge, that charge is refunded in full — automatically, as part of the cancellation flow. Renewal payments are non-refundable, but you can cancel anytime and keep access through the end of the period.

EU, EEA, and UK members also have a statutory 14-day right of withdrawal. Full details are in our Terms of Service.

Yes. From the cancellation page you can pause for 30 days instead — we will not bill you during the pause, your access stays as-is, and billing resumes automatically. You can still cancel at any point during the pause.

Your account drops back to the free tier — your bookmarks, follows, persona, and preferences are all kept. Publishing features (posting on Deaf Perspectives, sharing on Handspace, and your Creator profile) require an active Pro membership and unlock again if you return.

Yes — Academic Pro is all of Pro at half the price: $4.99/month or $49/year. It is open to students, faculty, and educators with a valid .edu email address, verified by a code at signup. Get it at deafmonitor.com/join.

Yes. Gift a year of Pro for $99 — you get a gift code to share, and the recipient redeems it at deafmonitor.com/redeem. Gift codes never expire, and unredeemed codes are refundable within 7 days of purchase.

Pro includes one Boost credit per month. Boosting surfaces your post, video, or profile prominently in the community feeds for 7 days — a simple way to give your content extra reach. Use it from your dashboard on anything you have published.

DeafMonitor is an aggregation platform — we surface stories from trusted Deaf-led organizations, Deaf media, mainstream outlets covering disability and accessibility, government agencies, and community submissions, and we credit every story back to its original publisher. We do not independently re-report or fact-check stories on top of the original publisher's reporting. If a specific story matters to you, the link to the source publisher is one click away on every item.

Community Partner content is labeled separately and never mixed with our independently aggregated editorial coverage.

We aggregate content from a broad network of trusted sources — Deaf-led organizations (NAD, WFD, Gallaudet), mainstream outlets covering disability and accessibility, Deaf media (Sign1News, The Daily Moth), government agencies, and community submissions.

Our feeds update continuously throughout the day. Breaking news appears in the ticker within minutes. The stories feed refreshes multiple times per hour with new articles from our source network.

Yes. Visit deafmonitor.com/submit to share a news tip, event, or story idea. Free and Pro members can submit directly from their dashboard. All submissions are reviewed by our editorial team before publishing.

We cover Tech, Advocacy, Education, Culture, Health, Sports, Employment, Legal, and Global news — all through the lens of the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community.

We prioritize ASL-first and captioned video content. Our video feed tags caption availability so you can filter for fully captioned content.

Yes. DeafMonitor publishes a standard RSS feed of the newest stories at deafmonitor.com/stories/feed.xml. Add that link to any RSS reader to follow Deaf-relevant news as it is published. Each item links back to the full story on DeafMonitor, with its original source credited.

Visit deafmonitor.com/events to browse the events calendar. You can filter by Local, Regional, National, or Online events. Set your ZIP code in your dashboard to see events nearest to you.

Event submissions are a Pro feature. Pro members can submit community events from the events page, and they list instantly on the community calendar.

Yes. Logged-in users can RSVP to events directly on the events page. Your RSVPs are saved in your dashboard for easy reference.

We cover Football, Basketball, Soccer, Baseball, Swimming, Track & Field, Hockey, Deaflympics, and Esports — with a focus on Deaf athletes, Deaf schools (like Gallaudet), and the Deaflympics.

Use the sport category filters on the sports page to view only the sports you care about. Pro members can set keyword alerts for specific teams or athletes.

Huddle is the Deaf sports scoreboard — live and final scores from Deaf schools, colleges, and grassroots tournaments, plus the free tools organizers use to put their own games on the board. Follow every score at /scores, and see how it works at /huddle. An iPhone app is on the way.

Scorekeepers at the event tap scores on their phones, and every update appears on /scores, the /sports page, and the Huddle app within 30 seconds. Live games show the period and a green live indicator; finals show the winner. The full season-by-season archive is part of DeafMonitor Pro.

Yes — and it is free for every Deaf sports organization, always. Sign in with any DeafMonitor account, visit /huddle, and tell us who you run scores for. You will be building your schedule within a minute: paste up to 100 games at once from a spreadsheet, and your event can also appear on the community events calendar with one checkbox.

No accounts, no downloads. Organizers print a QR sheet for each court or rink and tape it to the scorer's table. Volunteers scan it with any phone camera and the scoring pad opens — big buttons, automatic saving, and an offline mode built for gym wifi. Each link only scores the games it was made for, and organizers can revoke any link instantly.

DeafMonitor Huddle is coming to the App Store with live scores, a tournament calendar, Deaf sports news, QR scanning for scorekeepers, and offline scoring. Until launch day, everything works in your browser at /scores and /huddle — on any phone, iPhone or Android.

Yes. Some schedules on /scores are gathered automatically from Deaf schools' and colleges' own published calendars, so once in a while a detail needs a correction. Tap the small flag on any game to report a wrong opponent, date, or score, and our team will fix it. Teams can also claim their page to run and correct their own schedule directly at /huddle.

DeafMonitor covered the 2026 National Association of the Deaf Convention from the lead-up through the convention week. For all NAD-related stories, visit the stories feed. For in-depth convention coverage and editorial pieces, see the DeafMonitor Blog.

Handspace is our signing-first video feed — curated ASL, BSL, and other sign-language videos pulled from YouTube, Vimeo, and TikTok. It's the home for the Deaf community to watch, react, and discover signing creators in one place.

Deaf Perspectives is the Deaf Community Pulse — a real-time stream of what the community is watching, discussing, and creating, alongside written posts and voices from Deaf and Hard of Hearing people worldwide.

The AI Forum is a community discussion space focused on the intersection of AI, Deaf culture, sign language, and accessibility. It extends the conversations sparked at SLxAI and other Deaf-AI gatherings into an ongoing forum.

The Wish List is our community feature request board. Suggest a new feature, upvote ideas you want to see built, and watch them ship — DeafMonitor is built with the community, not just for it.

Roadmap priority is driven by Wish List upvotes, AI Forum discussions, and direct community feedback. The most-requested ideas move to the top — that's how Handspace, the AI Forum, and the Advocacy hub were born.

Advocacy is your nationwide and state-level action center for the Deaf community. Track active bills, send prefilled emails to your federal and state representatives, and find your state Deaf association — all in one place. It also brings the latest news and captioned ASL video from the National Association of the Deaf, recent advocacy news mapped to each state, and a plain-language summary of the current legislative landscape with links to the original reporting.

On the Advocacy page, pick your state to load active bills affecting the Deaf community. Each bill has a "Contact your rep" button that opens a prefilled email with your representative's address — review, edit, send.

The Library is an aggregated research library on Deaf culture, history, education, and accessibility — drawing from the Internet Archive, Library of Congress, PubMed, and DPLA, refreshed monthly.

The Directory lists Deaf organizations, clubs, schools, and community groups serving the global Deaf world. Browse by region, type, or focus area to find resources near you.

DM Score is the Community Health Score shown in the top nav — a real-time pulse of community engagement on the platform. Logged-in members also have a personal score that earns points and unlocks badges through participation.

The Jobs board aggregates roles from Deaf-led employers, accessibility-first companies, and broader sources tagged for Deaf and hard-of-hearing candidates. Filter by remote, location, and role type.

Statistics — the Deaf World in Numbers — gathers key data about the global Deaf and hard-of-hearing community: demographics, education, employment, and accessibility figures, drawn from public sources and presented in plain language.

Our Early Intervention hub for new parents is a calm starting point for families who have just learned their child is Deaf or hard of hearing — covering first steps, communication options, and where to find support and community.

The DeafMonitor Shop is the first online marketplace built exclusively for Deaf and hard-of-hearing entrepreneurs. Browse products and services from Deaf-owned businesses.

Shop seller onboarding is opening in waves — Pro members can join the seller waitlist from their dashboard. In the meantime, any Deaf-owned business can request a free listing in the Business Directory.

The Creator Directory is a curated network of Deaf and hard-of-hearing content creators, influencers, and thought leaders. Brands and organizations can discover and connect with creators for partnerships, and contact requests route privately to the creator's dashboard inbox.

Three sister surfaces, one ecosystem:

Creators — the hire-me directory for brands and orgs looking to partner with Deaf creators.

Handspace — the watch-me signing-first video feed.

Perspectives — the read-me Deaf community pulse and written voices.

DeafMonitor Pro members can create a content creator profile from their dashboard. Include your bio, social links, content categories, and engagement stats to be discovered by brands.

Any member can apply to become a seller. Review the Seller Agreement for platform terms, fees, and requirements, then use the contact form on that page to apply. Approved sellers list products in the DeafMonitor Shop — the marketplace built for Deaf-owned businesses.

Yes. DeafMonitor is built with WCAG 2.1 AA compliance including keyboard navigation, screen reader support, skip-to-content links, ARIA attributes, proper heading hierarchy, focus-visible indicators, and prefers-reduced-motion support.

Our video feed prioritizes ASL content and we tag videos by language (ASL, BSL, ISL, etc.). We are actively working on ASL video summaries for top stories.

Yes. All pages include proper semantic HTML, ARIA labels, landmark regions, and focus management for full screen reader compatibility.

We collect your name, email, and optional phone/ZIP code for account features. We use essential cookies for site functionality. Analytics cookies are only enabled after you explicitly consent via our cookie banner. We never sell your data. See our full privacy policy at deafmonitor.com/privacy.

Contact us at [email protected] to request account deletion. We will remove all your personal data within 30 days per GDPR and CCPA requirements.

Log in and visit your dashboard at deafmonitor.com/dashboard. Under Settings, you can update your persona, interest categories, notification preferences, and location.

DeafMonitor works on all modern browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and their mobile versions. We recommend keeping your browser updated for the best experience.

Not yet. DeafMonitor is a fully responsive web application optimized for mobile browsers. A native app is on our roadmap.

Visit deafmonitor.com/contact or email [email protected] with details about the issue. Screenshots and your browser/device info help us fix it faster.