Regarding the interpreter from Right Side ASL. The main complaint I'm receiving is that a person's ideology has no bearing on their work. If their work is good, then what's the problem. I feel this argument profoundly misunderstands the kind of work interpreters do

For many jobs, political ideology isn't problematic. Your accountant can be left, right, center, it doesn't matter. So can your banker or doctor. As long as they're doing their job and giving you loans or providing you medical care regardless of conflict of ideology

Although I should mention that research shows that intrinsic racism in many doctors prevents Black patients from receiving the support they need, so perhaps doctors shouldn't have racist ideologies.

The role of the interpreter is to mediate information. In signed language interpreting, interpreters /interpret/. They do not translate. The speech is not simply put into signed language forms and grammar. It is broken down to the message and then loosely reconstructed

Interpreters have a lot of leeway in how they portray the message in signed languages. As long as the message is approximate, it's good. Problems appear when we assume that all interpreters are neutral entities. This is a false assumption. Everyone has bias.

If the probability of bias can occur in interpreting, then it ought to be biased in favor of the speaker. If there is an ideological disconnect between the interpreter and the speaker, then there's a possibility that the interpretation will be biased AGAINST the speaker

Less of a problem in ordering a meat supreme pizza from your favorite pizza place, and the interpreter is a strict vegan. More of a problem when the interpreter is ideologically aligned with Trump and the speaker represents the Biden White House

But yet, maybe she did her job appropriately the first time. This leads us into our second problem. Interpreters in highly public positions become the face of the speaker for deaf and signed language communities.

Interpreters often go viral for many different reasons. It is PROBLEMATIC for the interpreter who is the public face of the Biden White House to be associated with alt-right disinformation campaigns. At best, this was simply a case of volunteering for the wrong job.

At worse this was an intentional campaign to keep a known figure in deaf alt-right circles at the front of a progressive government.

To writ - it's not about her skills. It's about what it represents to have an interpreter in a highly visible position as a source of information