'Zoombombers' taunt Oklahoma State Board of Education members with racial epithets, sexually

'Zoombombers' taunt Oklahoma State Board of Education members with racial epithets, sexually explicit language


Thursday’s meeting of the Oklahoma State Board of Education was disrupted by racist and sexually explicit attacks posted to the videoconferencing platform it is using to conduct public meetings while public gatherings are deemed unsafe.

It may have been the first incident of so-called “Zoombombing” on a public body in Oklahoma since the state Legislature temporarily modified the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act in March to allow officials to use webcams to hold virtual public meetings during the pandemic.

About 25 minutes into the board’s monthly meeting, trolls used a public chat function in Zoom, a popular online meeting platform the board has used for its last two meetings, to post the “n-word” and vulgar slang in comments visible to all meeting participants and live viewers.

When the comments, which were posted dozens of times in rapid-fire succession, popped up, state Education Department employees asked the board to pause their discussion so they could address the problem.

Read more: https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/education/zoombombers-taunt-oklahoma-state-board-of-education-members-with-racial-epithets-sexually-explicit-language/article_d0074fa4-94e0-513d-9c42-b38004a2aa19.html