Stay Safe in a Meeting

Participants in Zoom meetings largely rely on the host taking action. A meeting’s host can report a user to Zoom within an active meeting by using the Report feature available.

Participants can also report abuse directly with a bit more effort using email; read Zoom’s up-to-date reporting instructions to proceed.

As a participant, you can also take manual steps before a session and also act within a session if you see behavior that violates the rules of a meeting, societal norms, or laws. You can also protect yourself with some guidelines. Here are my suggestions:

• Don’t share invitations for public meetings with anyone you don’t know, unless you’ve been asked to be the organizer.

• Decline to accept meeting invitations that appear without knowing why you’re receiving them.

• In a public meeting, don’t accept or interact privately with strangers via a Zoom chat session.

• Backchannel to the host via chat as soon as someone starts to engage in problematic or abusive behavior. Describe briefly and specifically what you’re seeing. Ask them not to identify you as the source to avoid retribution.