ADL: How to prevent ‘Zoombombing’
Facade with sign at headquarters of videoconferencing, remote work, and webinar technology company Zoom (ZM) in the Silicon Valley, San Jose, California, March 28, 2020 Image by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
By Molly Boigon March 30, 2020
The Anti-Defamation League has released a list of tips to prevent “Zoombombing,” a tactic white supremacists and internet trolls are using to hack video conferences and project pornographic, racist and anti-Semitic imagery.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak, people are relying more heavily on online video conferencing software like Zoom, which has created new opportunities for those who wish to spread hateful messages.
The guidelines were drafted by experts in the ADL Center for Technology & Society in Silicon Valley. Before the meeting, the experts suggest, participants should take such measures as disabling features like autosaving chats, file transfer, screen sharing for non-hosts and the “Join Before Host” option. During the meeting, at least two co-hosts should be assigned, and the meeting should be locked once all attendees are present.
As a public service during this pandemic, the Forward is providing free, unlimited access to all coronavirus articles. If you’d like to support our independent Jewish journalism, click here.
The ADL has received several reports of Zoombombing, including incidents targeting classrooms at Arizona State University and the University of Southern California, one during a children’s storytelling session in New Jersey, one during a virtual Torah lesson and another during a Board of Education Meeting.
According to the ADL, “there has been limited online chatter among extremists about the specific strategy of abusing video conferencing technology,” so it appears as though most Zoombombers are acting alone.
But one of the perpetrators — who allegedly infiltrated the meeting of a Jewish student group in Massachusetts — is the known white supremacist hacker Andrew Alan Escher Auernheimer, who calls himself “weev.” Auernheimer “has a long history of publicly expressing his antisemitic and racist views and exploiting technology in order to gain attention,” the ADL wrote.
Molly Boigon is an investigative reporter at the Forward. Contact her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @MollyBoigon
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
