Thursday, September 14, 2023

Don’t let a large Zoom meeting turn into a circus!


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Sarah Clendenon at the Idaho Dispatch on September 13, 2023 titled Idaho Water Resource Board Meeting Rescheduled After Zoom Debacle. They attempted a public Zoom meeting on September 6, 2023. Sarah describes what happened:

 

“It was immediately obvious there were potential problems. When joining online, all cameras and microphones defaulted to the ‘on’ position for every person joining the meeting. Typically in a public meeting of this kind, the moderator is knowledgeable in Zoom settings and can restrict participation to keep order.    

 

Problems did arise, nearly immediately. Rowdy and disruptive participants wrote inappropriate statements in the chat window, shouted out offensive language, took control of the presentation screen, drew inappropriate doodles over the presenter’s slides, and verbally heckled acting Chairman Marc Gibbs.

 

The staff of the IDWR was able to quickly shut down the chat feature, but did not mute participants, did not find a way to stop hijacking of the screen, and could not stop the disruptions.”

 

This problem is commonly referred to as Zoombombing, and it has a page at Wikipedia. The ZOOM Blog has a post on July 26, 2021 titled How to keep uninvited guests out of your Zoom meeting. The problem also has been discussed by universities. One example at Indiana University, by their University Information Technology Services, is a web page titled Prevent Zoombombing using Zoom privacy and security features.

 

The circus image was derived from a Barnum & Bailey poster at Wikimedia Commons.

 


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