It was like 2021 all over again as a Cambridge meeting was Zoom bombed on Monday – likely for the first time since the Covid pandemic introduced the world to the video platform and the people who delight in disrupting them.
An online-only meeting of the Special Education and Student Supports Subcommittee was shut down briefly just after getting started at 4:30 p.m. by an interloper posting graphic video of sex acts – mainly of men masturbating – and the bold banner “hacked by CCP Michael.”
For subcommittee chair Luisa de Paula Santos, it was a first.
“I was shocked,” Santos said. The video images stayed onscreen for around 30 seconds as a staffer tried to figure out how to remove the Zoom bomber who’d taken over the screen. “Then she just shut down the meeting, which was a good call, obviously, but it was it was definitely upsetting.”
There was a Zoom bombing April 27, 2020, as the City Council began legislating online during the Covid lockdown and was confronted by the new phenomenon of online mischief. (In that case, images of people engaged in oral sex appeared onscreen.) The School Committee got hit as late as January and February 2021 before the hackers either got bored or frustrated by being blocked from taking over. A group takeover of a June 2021 municipal meeting was considered a hate crime by Cambridge police because a racial slur was directed at a participant.
Monday’s subcommittee meeting was scheduled to look at how the school district can connect better with families of students with disabilities, particularly ones in out-of-district placements; to get an update on improvements to the special-education website; and meet new leaders on the Special Education Parent Advisory Council. The agenda stalled before it even got started.
Upon the advice of superintendent David Murphy, who was reached by phone, subcommittee members restarted the meeting “trying to be more careful with who we let in, and with a whole procedure so only the hosts could let people unmute,” Santos said. In the future, staff may also change meeting links periodically, she said.
The whole thing happened quickly enough that some people who were slow to join the meeting didn’t realize what happened – they knew only that they were spending a while in an online queue waiting to let in, without knowing they were joining the meeting’s second try.
A city spokesperson, Jeremy Warnick, agreed Monday that this seemed to be the first Zoom bomb incident since the early Covid days. A voicemail was left with district director of communications Jackie Piques, who did not immediately reply.
It wasn’t clear to Santos if there were steps to be taken against the Zoom bomber. Lawyers say the hacks can be a crime, such as by violating disorderly conduct statutes, but generally they are treated as nuisances to be prevented rather than investigated.
Santos believed “it should be dealt with.”
“It was upsetting because I try – especially in these special education subcommittee meetings – to make it participatory. I was starting to worry that this was going to become a reason why we don’t let people talk freely in meetings, because of fear that this would happen,” Santos said. “It would be unfair if [because of Zoom bombs] there was a blanket silencing of people in these meetings. That’s the opposite of what we’re trying to do, and it’s just unfortunate that this happened.”
