BENNINGTON — Meetings of the MAU school district and elementary school district boards were hit by offensive Zoom “bombing” interruptions this week — each briefly displaying pornographic images and racist language.
“Bombing” refers to a visitor entering an online Zoom session and at some point displaying often inappropriate images, video or audio material until they are blocked by the meeting hosts.
“I don’t quite have the words for what I believe we just experienced,” Christopher Murphy, the Southwest Vermont Union Elementary School District board chairman, said after a “bombing” that occurred about nine minutes into its meeting Tuesday evening.
He asked Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union Superintendent James Culkeen to seek help from the district’s technology staff in keeping online visitors to Zoom sessions muted and blocked from sharing the meeting screen unless authorized.
The superintendent said a similar incident occurred early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when the SVSU first began using the online meeting platform for remote meetings.
In December 2021, pornographic footage lasting several seconds interrupted a School Board meeting.
Culkeen said the meeting hosts afterward began muting participants and unlocking their microphone when they wanted to speak, but over time there had been no further “bombings.”
“Even though that is a pain, I would rather have that than what we just had here,” Murphy said.
Culkeen acted as the Zoom meeting host during the two board meetings this week.
A complicating factor is that online meetings must be open to the public under the state’s Open Meeting Law.
SEEKING TECH HELP
Contacted on Wednesday about steps the SVSU might take in response to the incidents, public information coordinator Katie West said in an email, “Superintendent Culkeen and the SVSU tech department are exploring security options for future meetings.”
The MAUSD board meeting on Monday was interrupted for several seconds of pornographic video followed by a voice repeating an anti-Black slur over and over.
The same type of images and language were displayed during the elementary district board meeting on Tuesday.
Catamount Access Television immediately shut down its recording of the meeting on Tuesday, Program Manager Michael Cutler said Thursday.
He said the technician had recognized the same screen name associated with the first incident among those displayed during the elementary school district Zoom session and was prepared to halt the recording.
If such an incident interrupts a meeting, he said, CAT-TV will edit out the segment before posting or reposting the meeting video online or for showing on local TV channels.
If CAT-TV is covering the meeting and showing the program live online and on one of its local cable channels, he said, the images might be seen by viewers.
The offensive content has been deleted from the recordings being shown now on the local channel and CAT-TV’s Facebook and YouTube pages.