Remember Zoom-bombing? This is how Zoom tamed meeting intrusions.

This article is a preview of The Tech Friend newsletter. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. When Zoom video calls became inescapable in

early 2020 due to the pandemic, so did Zoom-bombing intrusions. That year, a virtual student government meeting at the University of Florida and an Atlanta-area high

school class were derailed by intruders shouting racial slurs and other hateful material. Harassers crashed Alcoholics Anonymous meetings to troll people who abstained. A Zoom

chat hosted by Chipotle ended after a participant broadcast pornography to hundreds of people’s screens. Fast forward to 2023 — Zoom-bombing still happens but security

experts say it is far less prevalent than it was in 2020 and not only because we’re interacting more in person. Zoom actually helped tame Zoom-bombing partly by making

its product more difficult for you and for online harassers to use. Essentially, the company traded some of your convenience for your safety. I have tips at the end of

this article for how you can further beef up your protections from Zoom-bombing. But the point is, you probably don’t have too. The company did a lot of the protection for you.

There is a lesson here. The success of reducing Zoom-bombing shows how the zeal to make technology a breeze for you comes with trade-offs. And with more of you

concerned about security of your digital accounts, nagging robocalls or bullying of children online, the taming of Zoom-bombing is proof that you don’t have to accept horrible

downsides as the price of being connected.