How to stop trolls from taking over your Zoom call

Zoom is an easy-to-use videoconferencing tool with a generous free tier. With people around the world isolating indoors to protect themselves against the spread of the coronavirus, it has never been more popular. But its popularity has also attracted trolls. The phenomenon of “Zoombombing,” in which an uninvited guest uses Zoom’s screen-sharing feature to broadcast porn and shock videos, has been on the rise.

Most Zoom meetings have a public link that, if clicked, allow anyone to join. Trolls have been collecting these links and sharing them in private chat groups, and then signing on to other people’s calls to cause mischief. There’s an easy way to stop this from happening, but Zoom makes it needlessly difficult to find. If you schedule a meeting from the web interface, you won’t see the option to disable screen sharing.

Instead: Once you save your settings, future meetings that you start will have sharing disabled by default. If you forget to change the setting before you start your meeting, there’s a way to modify your settings after it starts: And what if you’re creating a meeting from your mobile device? To disable screen sharing after you’ve started your meeting: Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.

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