One of San Francisco’s oldest churches is suing video conferencing platform Zoom, after its online bible study was flooded with porn in a cyber-attack.
On Wednesday, a proposed class action lawsuit was filed against Zoom by Saint Paulus Lutheran Church after its May 6 Bible study, "had their computer screens hijacked and their control buttons disabled while being forced to watch pornographic video footages,” USA Today reports.
The complaint was filed by the church and church administrator Heddi N. Cundle in the U.S District Court in San Jose, California.
In response, Zoom addressed the incident in an emailed statement.
"We were deeply upset to hear about this incident, and our hearts go out to those impacted by this horrific event. On the same day we learned of this incident, we identified the offender, took action to block their access to the platform and reported them to the relevant authorities,” the statement read.
According to the Christian Post, the lawsuit claims that Zoom failed to “implement proper security measures to protect users’ privacy and secure their videoconferences.” This action, the lawsuit argues, is what allows “Zoombombing” to occur.
The suit also claims that Zoom “uses data-mining tools to collect users’ personal information and shares it with third parties without the users’ consent” in order to provided targeted ads.
Saint Paulus is just one of several churches to experience “Zoombombing” in recent months as many churches turn to technology amid church closures and state lockdowns over the coronavirus.
As Christian Headlines reported in April, Tabernacle Congregational Church’s virtual service was hijacked by zoomboomers who flashed footage of KKK meetings and of a burning cross while playing racial slurs through the speakers.
Pastor Joe Amico of the Salem, Massachusetts-based church shared that because of the hijacking, church services were no longer available to the general public.
“We have removed links for our services from social media and only give the links to our email list. We feel badly because we had been having visitors join our worship. Now folks have to contact us for the link and be vetted by how they know us,” he told the Christian Post.
As part of Zoom’s latest update, the company announced updated security features and encryption for all paying users.
“With a recent influx of first-time users, we are focusing on providing security settings that are easy to use for both first-time users and existing enterprise customers to give everyone an experience that is both frictionless and highly secure,” Zoom noted.
Related:
'Zoombombers' Display KKK Videos, Play Racist Music during Virtual Church Service
'Zoombombing' Comes for Houses of Worship
Photo courtesy: ©Kayla Koslosky
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
