Zoom adds tools to let you block, report people disrupting your meetings

Zoom on Monday released new features designed to remove and report “Zoombombers,” or uninvited attendees who break into and disrupt meetings. The features are available on the Zoom desktop clients for Mac, PC, Linux and mobile apps. You’ll need to download the latest version of Zoom to access them.

The first feature, Suspend Participant Activities, lets hosts and co-hosts pause a meeting, remove an uninvited user and notify Zoom’s Trust and Safety team. After the host or co-host has reported the user, they can re-enable meeting features like video, audio, in-meeting chat or screen sharing, which are put on hold as they’re blocking the disruptor. 

The other feature, called Report by Participants, lets users report an intruder directly from the Zoom client by clicking the top-left security icon.

The videoconferencing platform also rolled out an At Risk Meeting Notifier, which scans public posts online and across social media for Zoom meeting links. If it finds publicly posted meeting information that suggests a meeting is at high risk of being disrupted, Zoom will notify account owners and admins via email. 

Zoom drew heightened attention at the start of the coronavirus pandemic as more people began working from home and using the platform for meetings, classes and virtual hangouts. The platform was scrutinized for a number of potential privacy and security issues, and has since rolled out features like end-to-end encryption for all users and expanded two-factor authentication for desktop and mobile.