Discouraging Zoombombing

Content in this entry provided by UTK Office of Information Technology

Zoom-Guidance - Guidelines from UTK on setting preferences to restrict participants, 4/1/2020

“Zoom-Bombing” is a new term for when individuals “gate-crash” Zoom meetings. These uninvited guests could share their screens, make disturbing posts in the chat, and attempt to take over the meeting. Our global Zoom settings have prevented this from being widespread. Here are some additional steps that can be taken at the individual meeting level to help prevent “Zoom-Bombing.”

Zoom has provided a Guide to Prevent Party Crashers. Some do not apply to our specific instance of Zoom, but provide a nice overview.

Here are some highlights and a few of our recommendations:

1. Do not share your class session links on social media or other public sites.
    
2. Familiarize yourself with Zoom Meeting scheduling options. See Scheduling Meetings.

You will need to make informed decisions about implementing these based on the size of your class. Some of these recommendations may be cumbersome for large classes. There can be trade-offs related to each of these settings. When you schedule your class meeting, consider the following options:

• Start the meeting with the host’s video on.
   
• Start the meeting with the participants’ video off.
   
• Mute participants upon entry.
   
• Require a password to join the class session.
   
• Disable private chat.
   
  • Zoom has in-meeting chat for everyone or participants can message each other privately. Restrict participants’ ability to chat amongst one another while your event is going on and cut back on distractions. This is really to prevent anyone from getting unwanted messages during the meeting.
     
• Disable join before host.
   
• Disable screen sharing for participants.
   
  • You do not want random people in your public event taking control of the screen and sharing unwanted content with the group. You can restrict this — before the meeting and during the meeting in the host control bar — so that you’re the only one who can screen-share.
     
• Consider locking your meeting after it starts.
   
  • When you lock a Zoom Meeting that’s already started, no new participants can join, even if they have the meeting ID and password (if you have required one). In the meeting, click Participants at the bottom of your Zoom window. In the Participants pop-up, click the button that says Lock Meeting.
     
  • Keep in mind that if you lock the meeting, those inadvertently bumped out will not be able to rejoin.
     
• Turn off file transfer in chat.
   
  • In-meeting file transfer allows people to share files through the in-meeting chat. Toggle this off to keep the chat from getting bombarded with unsolicited pics, GIFs, memes, and other content.
     
• Consider using the waiting room feature.
   
  • Meeting hosts can customize Waiting Room settings for additional control, and you can even personalize the message people see when they hit the Waiting Room so they know they’re in the right spot. This message is the perfect place to post rules or guidelines for your meeting.
     
• Remove unwanted or disruptive participants.
   
  • From that Participants menu, you can mouse over a participant’s name, and several options will appear, including Remove. Click that to kick someone out of the meeting.