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He Was 'Zoombombed' In Front Of His Family While Defending His Dissertation

As he was defending his dissertation, Dennis Johnson's Zoom video conference was interrupted by an unknown intruder. Johnson hopes his bad experience will bring better protections to the platform.
Courtesy of Dennis Johnson
As he was defending his dissertation, Dennis Johnson's Zoom video conference was interrupted by an unknown intruder. Johnson hopes his bad experience will bring better protections to the platform.

Updated at 5:30 p.m. ET

Dennis Johnson was just trying to defend his dissertation — the last step in getting his doctorate in education — in front of a virtual audience of friends and family.

Instead, he became the face of "Zoombombing," a new form of online harassment, when an unknown intruder interrupted his Zoom video conference by drawing genitalia and writing racial slurs on screen.

Johnson finished his presentation, and quickly launched a petition urging Zoom to do more to protect its users — especially now that so many people are relying on video chat in their daily lives and reports of targeted Zoom attacks are on the rise.

Johnson hopes his experience will lead to change. "This is not an isolated incident. This is a systemic issue," he said. His question to Zoom: "What are you all going to do from a systemic level to deal with this issue? Let me help you. My moment has already been stolen."

Zoom has made several changes to security and privacy, including requiring passwords for all meetings by default.

He's now Dr. Johnson. He plans to celebrate once the lockdown is lifted by going to Disneyland.

"It'll be like I just won a sports championship," he said.

But he also misses talking with students and sharing his knowledge. "I miss interacting with people in person," he said.

Read more stories in Faces Of The Coronavirus Recession.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Shannon Bond is a business correspondent at NPR, covering technology and how Silicon Valley's biggest companies are transforming how we live, work and communicate.

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SOMOS CONNECTICUT es una iniciativa de Connecticut Public, la emisora local de NPR y PBS del estado, que busca elevar nuestras historias latinas y expandir programación que alza y informa nuestras comunidades latinas locales. Visita CTPublic.org/latino para más reportajes y recursos. Para noticias, suscríbase a nuestro boletín informativo en ctpublic.org/newsletters.

The independent journalism and non-commercial programming you rely on every day is in danger.

If you’re reading this, you believe in trusted journalism and in learning without paywalls. You value access to educational content kids love and enriching cultural programming.

Now all of that is at risk.

Federal funding for public media is under threat and if it goes, the impact to our communities will be devastating.

Together, we can defend it. It’s time to protect what matters.

Your voice has protected public media before. Now, it’s needed again. Learn how you can protect the news and programming you depend on.