Protecting online safe spaces

Twice now, the small speakers’ series I co-host online has been “Zoom-bombed.” The series focuses on reproductive politics and has been running for a few years — a holdover from the proliferation of online events during the pandemic.  

“Zoom-bombing” refers to any time uninvited guests join a virtual meeting to disrupt it, typically by sharing loud audio or offensive imagery, or both. In our case, the “bombings” involved participants joining our meetings and sharing images of graphic pornography. On both occasions, several accounts were used so it would take us longer to regain control of the Zoom room. In the most recent incident, the perpetrators changed their screen names to match those already in the meeting, which meant that when we went to report them, we only had the names of friends and colleagues. 

The Zoom-bombings, in some ways, were not a big deal. The disturbances were momentary, and the presentations went on as planned. The images of pornography — however disturbing — lasted only a few moments, and we all experienced it from the relative safety of our homes and offices. It might have been triggering for some, and uncomfortable for all, but we could close our screens and remove those accounts.  

At the same time, however, my co-host and I were rattled, recognizing that the supportive community we have been building can so easily be infiltrated at any time. I was reminded that we always need to be vigilant. Opening our doors — virtual or otherwise — when we host events on gender, sexuality and reproductive politics means that either we have to approach our work with skepticism about who might be coming into the room, or else hate will sometimes find us.  

In her memoir of an abusive relationship, Carmen Maria Machado examines how the scariest stories often centre on the haunted house, because terror at home leaves us no safe place to go. We were rattled because the Zoom bombings happened in a (virtual) place we thought was safe. The call was coming from inside the building. 

I also find it interesting that the tool of choice was pornography. In both instances of Zoom-bombing, the accounts in question changed their screen to “hard core” videos in ways intended to appall and offend. The non-consensual appearance of graphic sexual imagery is an act of violence, but I keep thinking about why pornography is the disruption of choice. A colleague recently told me about being Zoom-bombed by an unsolicited penis on camera in real time. Is it humiliation they are after? Inciting shock? Eliciting trauma? Violation is the word that feels the most true.  

The purpose of a Zoom-bombing of the kind we experienced — however considered or thoughtless — is to make it more difficult to share our ideas with one another. And people looking to spread hate or to limit discussion about topics often considered controversial may be looking to silence us. Infiltrating and disrupting our conversations is one way to do it. Not only does it stop the discussion in progress, but during one incident, we ended up kicking out someone who genuinely wanted to attend and couldn’t rejoin the event. We also stopped admitting people to the Zoom room, most of whom were coming in earnest to learn. 

There are measures we could take to improve security, and there is a great deal of advice online about how to do so. We have tried requiring people to register for events and limited the capacity of participants to share their screens or turn on their cameras or even to unmute. We usually implement a waiting room system to allow us to choose who we let in. But sometimes in moments where we are feeling less skeptical about the state of the world, we have shared the meeting links with our networks because we want new colleagues and collaborators to join us.

As our small team regroups, we will rethink how we publicize events, how we share links and how we use our event settings (again). I keep returning to how we can balance the instinct to lock down our events by taking measures that will keep our speakers and audience secure, with our own goals to build community, come together and engage freely with one another online.

Although we were (and we are) disrupted, our labour now is to continue to think through how to best resist attempts to silence us and to violate the (virtual) spaces we thought we could safely occupy by continuing to come together.