Conference Tools Weren't Designed to Be Social Networks

No matter where you are, you are probably (somewhat or greatly) affected by COVID19. I’m an American in Berlin, and navigating around COVID19 has entirely changed my life, including my social life. Social distancing physically has pushed people back into the digital and onto the internet.

I’ve been invited to live Instagram streams, Zoom karaoke, Zoom dance parties, Zoom drinking parties, Zoom brunches, to numerous Facetime video calls, Google Hangouts, Skype digital coffees, Netflix Party video streams, the list goes on. Video conferencing and seeing the reactions of my friends and loved ones makes this time slightly easier.

This has brought me, and many others, to a new reliance and shift to video conferencing during the time of quarantining in COVID19. This reliance and shift to video conferencing makes sense—schools are doing it to make sure classes go online, and video conferencing has been a staple of remote work environments. But what’s new here is how video conference tools are being used out of business and school environments to fill in the gap of social intimacy and events created in social distancing. Zoom was never intended to be used for multi-person dance parties, and while I’m sure Zoom loves how popular it’s become, this does raise some concerns. Does Zoom actually have the right tools to let people communicate in these new ways? Does any video conferencing tool have that?

Video conferencing tools are not without their problems #

Zoom has had a slew of reported privacy and security issues, such as VICE uncovering that Zoom’s iOS app was sending information to Facebook about when users logged in, or earlier in 2020, Zoom reported having a security flaw that could allow hackers to take over users’ microphones, and with human rights and technology advocacy group, Access Now, requesting transparency reports from Zoom (which Zoom hasn’t delivered yet).

These are just some of the issues with Zoom; the other big problem is video-conferencing harassment. Zoom has a specific form of harassment occurring, called Zoombombing. Zoombombing is when a troll takes control of the Zoom room by sharing a video or their screen, and disrupting the Zoom hangouts with inappropriate and offensive content, and generally causing havoc. NBC News reported Princeton professor and noted author, Ruja Benjamin, and her husband getting Zoombombed when reading books to children. Their harasser was a white man in a thong and kept repeating the n-word. Benjamin and her husband eventually ended the Zoom call and canceled the reading. Casey Newton, a technology journalist, had his work from home happy hour Zoombombed.

What’s important to note here is that relatively technology-savvy people are getting Zoombombed, and it’s not a few people: it’s becoming a more common occurrence. Researcher and disinformation expert Joan Donovan has tweeted out ways to mitigate Zoombombing, but it still doesn’t completely stop it. Product designer Amélie Lamont summarizes the sentiment best: it seems clear big technology companies are not designing with harassment in mind. This is especially true of enterprise technology like most video conferencing software and technology that insists that it’s only enterprise, such as Slack. Right now, Zoom is so similar to Slack in that it’s a product that seems to be or insists that it’s just enterprise software but it’s used like a social network or social messaging platform. Slack is used for friends groups, neighborhood blocks, alumni associations, conferences, and just for general hangouts, as well as for workplaces. Does this sound familiar? Zoom is being used in the exact same way. And there is harassment happening on both platforms.

So, why is this happening? These tools were built for conferencing, not for general socializing, and they don’t have enough blocking capabilities or moderation tools to support the kinds of new social interactions that are happening. Slack, for example, has repeatedly said publicly it’s just a workplace tool, and thus doesn't need blocking or moderation. Their stance is that ‘disagreements’ can be worked out in an office place. But that’s not how harassment unfolds in the world—work isn’t harassment free, just like harassment can come from friend groups, loved ones, and complete strangers. When a tool or platform allows for multiple people to interact with each other, there will be harassment. Case in point with the prolific harassment that occurs across Wikipedia.

In a sense, Zoom does a better job than most conferencing tools in allowing for more nuanced kinds of interactions, such as allowing for a moderator to create breakout groups #

Breakout groups are smaller, private groups inside of the larger Zoom meeting room. And this kind of design allows for a specific kind of intimacy in Zoom, which makes it a great and useful tool right now. This intimacy means users need more granular moderation tools per person: easier-to-find, intuitive moderation tools for the organizer, such as the ability to immediately block or cut someone’s video who is sharing. Imagine the ability to click on the main screen and have tools right at your fingertips, right at the right-click.

Eleanor Wynn, a former Principal Engineer at Intel and current scholar with the Ronin Institute, wrote over a messaging app about her work exploring team meetings and virtual meetings at Intel: “The mistake that I see in the videoconferencing tools is that seeing isn't primary... nobody has the patience to sit all day in video conferences. We judged that the maximum time for an effective video conference, which we also did, was 4 hours. After that, you might as well get people on a plane.”

What conference tools focus on is work and facilitating work conversations but not necessarily how people see large groups of people and interact. It’s about presenting slideshows and facilitating work conversations, not hosting dinner parties. And now video conferencing tools are being used for multiple hours per day, in our work hours and out of work hours.

With people running dance parties on Zoom, workout classes on Vimeo; people are yearning for connection right now since we can’t have real, physical human touch. Intimacy is being craved. But for tools to be used for pure socializing like karaoke, or digital brunches, conferencing tools and hangouts need to be redesigned. Imagine an online web browser tool that is just dedicated to karaoke. Imagine what that could look like. More importantly, imagine what it would need to mitigate harassment. If a tool allows for video conferencing or video interaction in real-time, people will use it, regardless of how the tool is intended to be used. Users change and reinterpret meaning to technology constantly, we see this Facebook which started out just for college students and now is larger than any nation-state.

Technology can adapt and shift, and it should especially to meet the needs of their users. Now, in the age of COVID19, it’s time for enterprise software that’s being used for all different kinds of new users, to better protect their users from harassment. And Zoom agrees. On April 1st, the CEO published a statement promising to spend the next 90 days on improvements: better encryption, and better tools. Zoom, we’ll be waiting and watching.

Caroline Sinders is a design researcher and artist analyzing technology and its impacts through a social justice lens.