Hispanic Heritage Zoom Assembly Disrupted

A virtual celebration for Hispanic Heritage Month was disrupted with a series of chats and music blaring as presenters attempted to speak. From the start the chat, which was for answering questions, sharing information and providing a vehicle for students’ feedback, took an ugly turn. Users sent a series of smiley faces, and before long lots of spam chats including some with profanity were showing up on the Zoom screen – a distraction for everyone in attendance for the celebration. The chat function was disabled. But once the chat was disabled, another issue occurred.