Zoom meetings - what are your thoughts?

[SistemaAddict]

I am doing a college course and they want us to have weekly zoom meetings as a group. There are 15 of us in the group. How does it work and is it safe? There's something about it that makes me feel uncomfortable. My home is private and I don't want people I don't know (we only attend once a week) to be seeing any of it. I know that sounds ridiculous but since my abusive ExH left I've been very protective over my home. It's my safe have . I have 3dc and they would not make things easy either.

Have you used it? Do you like it? Is it safe?

What makes you uncomfortable? It’s just a video call with multiple people on it

They won’t know your house from the tiny square of background visible behind your head

You can blur or have a background. You can mute yourself unless you are actually speaking when you turn microphone on which means if children interrupt no one would know. Meeting should be password protected which means they can control who joins.

You can switch your camera off if you like and it’s permitted by the college. I do a mix of letting others see me and not (ie Zoom Zumba classes definitely off). This morning I did online Slimming World and unfortunately saw someone unexpected from my past when I had my camera on and didn’t realise until half way through when I’d already been speaking and revealing some personal information...it felt like a real intrusion. I think there is an assumption everyone will be comfortable with it but a lot of people aren’t.

Ask about keeping your video off and explain why.

I don't like the idea either. Home is a personal private space that I let a select few people entry.

We hold numerous zoom meetings a day for work and I do my gym classes via zoom. For the work meetings I’m usually sat on my bed so all anyone sees is my headboard and the wall behind the bed.

It’s a good way of keeping in touch.

Turn the video off if you want?

That’s what I do at work if the kids are in the background and hard to move away.

You can either blur your background, or put a filter on so it's clouds/rainbows/sparkles etc.

I didn't know the video could be switched off, thank you, that makes me feel much better. I can't explain logically why I don't like it but I just don't. Now that I know the video can be off, I'll give it a go.

You put a password on the meeting and have it so the host approves all attendees before they join, all they will see is a patch of wall behind you. I hold my calls from a room where behind me is a white wall

Absolutely ok to turn the camera off. I was in a meeting recently and after introductions we all turned camera off. Also another meeting today and zoom crashed twice for me and I had to go back in audio only as I believe it saves bandwidth and helps with connection issues.

I joined it yesterday for a college course. My dad, who is a computer geek said he was wary of it as he’d read of a lot of security issues. The next day I’ve just had £600 of fraudulent activity on my credit card, which I have an app for on the same device that I’ve installed Zoom on. Could be a coincidence, but it’s made me wonder!

Other than that I liked how it worked for the lesson, and you can change settings so you couldn’t see your room behind you.

Its fine. If you are going to turn the camera off you might as well just do a dial in call on your phone though

Work have declared Zoom to be risky so now we have switched to Microsoft teams. I just sit in front of the blankest white wall in the whole house so no one can see anything.

Zoom is reckoned to have some serious security flaws so may not be the best choice.

But re video - you don't have to use it. We never do for work meetings anyway, we always have documents etc to share onscreen.

You can change your background to a photo also

Don't blame you OP, I'm not keen either

We use Google meet for work as we have an organisation Google account so only people with work logins can join and security setting can be set at an organisational level. . We can invite people with other email addresses but have to let them in the meeting .

My work would never allow us to use zoom.

There's a way to get star wars backgrounds....
I don't have a camera, work didn't buy me a webcam, so it's very easy for me to do no video.
Can't share files on my phone like I can on the PC. So PC is better for me to Zoom.

UK Govt & the WHO use Zoom. I don't need to try to out-think them.

There's another one called Jitsi which is better than Zoom and is free to use.

Our firm have cleared zoom as being appropriate for internal meetings and those with clients. There is a log on code and password so secure. Invites are sent by email. Our firm are also using it to check everyone is ok and coping with working from home and all the current changes we are dealing with.