So Zoom has problems. There are myriad privacy concerns, trolls are dropping porn into business meetings and elementary school classes, and apparently the video-conferencing platform also hates sex parties. But we keep using Zoom because we all trauma-bonded to it in the early days of social distancing, and compared to the rapidly declining state of the entire rest of the world right now, Zoom’s issues have fallen a little low on our priority list.
Unfortunately, one Texas dance instructor was forced to put Zoom and its problems at the top of her list after some uninvited men managed to hack into virtual pole dancing classes she was hosting on the platform and harass her students. The incidents prompted instructor Stacey Simins to file a class action lawsuit against Zoom claiming the platform’s security failings allowed the unwelcome guests to crash.
“After Ms. Simins began using Zoom, uninvited men joined some of her classes on Zoom,” claims the suit, which was filed Monday in California federal court and first reported by Bloomberg Law. “The attackers were intimidating and harassing to Ms. Simins’ clients. On at least one occasion, Ms. Simins had to cancel a session as a result,” the suit says.
In the suit, Simins claims she chose to host her classes on Zoom based on the platform’s purported security features, but has found that “in reality, Zoom has failed to deliver private and secure video conferencing.”
There are so few things left to enjoy in the world as it stands today, and Zoom has been our primary connection to many of those things. Unfortunately, creepy men are still managing to ruin even those few sources of joy and normalcy. But I suppose it’s nice, at a time like this, to know that some things never change.
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