Preventing disruptions in Zoom Events


The best way to prevent disruptions during your Zoom Events is to familiarize yourself with Zoom Events' security options for single-session events and multi-session events, and to only enable the features necessary to conduct your event. In addition, as the host, you can report an attendee for inappropriate behavior or for being disruptive. This will help ensure that all of your attendees will have a happy and safe experience.

This article covers:

Prerequisites for preventing a Zoom Events disruption

Note: For access to the latest Zoom Events and Webinar features, we strongly recommend hosts to update to the latest version of the Zoom desktop client/mobile application.

How to configure safety settings at start time for your event

Start your event 5 to 10 minutes before the scheduled time (before attendees join) to check your event's security settings (set when you created the event) and to verify that the attendees' settings are set how you want. You can change the settings at any time during the event, but it is best to confirm your settings before attendees join.

Zoom Event's default settings are set to the highest level of security to help prevent disruptions during your event.

Note: You can review these security options by reviewing the event's security settings in Advanced Options.

How to use best practices for preventing event disruption during your event

Note: The following features are all disabled by default.

Prevent attendees from annotating on your presentation

You can prevent attendees from annotating on your presentation if you share your screen.

  1. While screen sharing, in the meeting controls toolbar, click the More more-button__1_.png icon.
  2. Click Disable Annotation for Others.

Mute all attendees' microphones

You can prevent disruptive sounds from attendees' microphones during your event by muting all attendees' microphones.

  1. In the meeting controls toolbar, click the Participants participants-or-channel-button.png icon.
  2. At the bottom of the Participants window, click the ellipsis more-button__1_.png.
  3. Click Mute Participants/Attendees upon Entry.

Prevent attendees from unmuting themselves

In addition to muting attendees upon entering your event, you can also prevent attendees from unmuting their microphones during your event.

Prevent attendees from unmuting themselves in a Meeting event/session

If you select or include a Meeting event type/session in your event, to prevent attendees from changing their names during your event:

  1. In the meeting controls toolbar, click the Security icon.
  2. Under Allow participants to, click Unmute Themselves to remove the checkmark.

Prevent attendees from unmuting themselves in a Webinar event/session

If you select or include a Webinar event type/session in your event, to prevent attendees from unmuting their microphones during your event:

  1. In the meeting controls toolbar, click the Participants participants-or-channel-button.png icon.
  2. At the bottom of the Participants window, click the ellipsis more-button__1_.png.
  3. Click Allow Attendees to Unmute Themselves.

Prevent attendees from changing their names

You can prevent attendees from changing their names during your event.

Prevent attendees from changing their names in a Meeting session/event

If you select or include a Meeting event type/session in your event, to prevent attendees from changing their names during your event:

  1. In the meeting controls toolbar, click the Security icon .
  2. Under Allow participants to, click Rename Themselves to remove the checkmark.

Prevent attendees from changing their names in a Webinar session/event

If you select or include a Webinar event type/session in your event, to prevent attendees from changing their names during your event:

  1. In the meeting controls toolbar, click the Participants icon participants-or-channel-button.png.
  2. At the bottom of the Participants window, click the ellipsis more-button__1_.png.
  3. Click Allow Attendees to Rename Themselves.

How to delete messages sent in chat during an event

You can delete messages and files sent by users in the chat window. After deleting a user's message, you will have the option to report that specific user to the Zoom Trust and Safety team to evaluate any misuse of the platform and block the user if necessary.

To delete a message from the lobby chat window during an event:

  1. In the event controls bar, click the Chat icon to open the chat window.
  2. Hover your mouse over the chat message you want to delete.
  3. Click the ellipsis more-button__1_.png.
  4. Click Delete.

Report a user who causes a disruption

After you delete a user's message from the in-meeting chat window during an event, you will have the option to report that attendee to the Zoom Trust and Safety team to evaluate any misuse of the platform and block the user if necessary.

Note: The option to report a user only appears after you have deleted a user's message from the lobby chat window during your event.

To report a user from the lobby chat window:

  1. Click Report [Attendee's Name] .
    A dialog box will appear.
  2. In the Who do you want to report? box, confirm the name of the user who you want to report.
  3. In the What happened? box, select an option from the drop-down menu.
  4. (Optional) Check Include desktop screenshot if you want to provide a screenshot with the report.
  5. (Optional) Click View Screenshot.
  6. Click Submit.

How to remove users and chat messages from the event's Control Panel as a moderator

Moderators can report a user in the lobby using the Control Panel.

Remove users using the Control Panel

To remove a user who has been reported:

  1. Sign in to Zoom Events.
  2. In the top-right corner, click Tickets.
  3. Find the event you are a moderator for, click View Order.
  4. Click View User Reports.
  5. To the right of the user you will remove, click More more-button__1_.png.
  6. Click Remove User.
  7. Click Yes, Remove User.
  8. Click Done.

Remove all messages sent by a user using the Control Panel

To remove all chat messages sent by a user who has been reported:

  1. Sign in to Zoom Events.
  2. In the top-right corner, click Tickets.
  3. Find the event you are a moderator for, click View Order.
  4. Click View User Reports.
  5. To the right of the user whose messages you will remove, click More more-button__1_.png.
  6. Click Remove Messages.
  7. Click Yes, Remove User Messages.
  8. Click Done.

Remove users and all chat messages sent by the user using the Control Panel

To remove a user and all chat messages sent by the user who has been reported:

  1. Sign in to Zoom Events.
  2. In the top-right corner, click Tickets.
  3. Find the event you are a moderator for, click View Order.
  4. Click View User Reports.
  5. To the right of the user whose messages you will remove, click More .
  6. Click Remove User and Messages.
  7. Click Yes, Remove User and Messages.
  8. Click Done.

How to report and remove users and chat messages from an event lobby

Event owners and moderators can report and/or remove a user, and all the messages sent by that user, from an event lobby.

Enable or disable lobby or expo chat from the Control Panel

In the Control tab in the Control Panel, the event host and moderator can enable or disable lobby and expo chats.

  1. Sign in to Zoom Events.
  2. In the navigation menu, click My Events.
  3. Find the event that you want to enable or disable lobby and expo chats.
  4. By the event, click the ellipsis more-button__1_.png then click Analytics and Control.
  5. Click the Control tab.
  6. Under Chat:
    • Click the Lobby toggle to enable or disable it.
    • Click the Expo toggle to enable or disable it.

Report and remove a user from an event lobby

  1. In the bottom-left corner of the lobby, click Report and Remove.
  2. Click the Where did the problem occur? drop-down menu, then select where the problem occurred.
  3. In the Who do you want to report? box, confirm the name of the user you want to report.
  4. Click the What happened? drop-down menu, then select the option that best reflects why you are reporting the user.
  5. Click Report and Remove.
  6. Click User.
  7. Click Continue.
  8. Click Yes, Report & Remove User.
  9. Click Done.

Remove a user from an event lobby

  1. In the bottom-left corner of the lobby, click Report and Remove.
  2. Click the Where did the problem occur? drop-down menu, then select where the problem occurred.
  3. In the Who do you want to report? box, confirm the name of the user you want to report.
  4. Click the What happened? drop-down menu, then select the option that best reflects why you are reporting the user.
  5. Click Report and Remove.
  6. Click User.
  7. Click the Report to Zoom toggle to remove the user, but without submitting an incident report to Zoom.
  8. Click Continue.
  9. Click Yes, Remove User.
  10. Click Done.

Report and remove all chat messages sent by a user from an event lobby

  1. In the bottom-left corner of the lobby, click Report and Remove.
  2. Click the Where did the problem occur? drop-down menu, then select where the problem occurred.
  3. In the Who do you want to report? box, confirm the name of the user you want to report.
  4. Click the What happened? drop-down menu, then select the option that best reflects why you are reporting the user.
  5. Click Report and Remove.
  6. Click All messages by the user.
  7. Click Continue.
  8. Click Yes, Report & Remove User Messages.
  9. Click Done.

Remove all chat messages sent by a user from an event lobby

  1. In the bottom-left corner of the lobby, click Report and Remove.
  2. Click the Where did the problem occur? drop-down menu, then select where the problem occurred.
  3. In the Who do you want to report? box, confirm the name of the user you want to report.
  4. Click the What happened? drop-down menu, then select the option that best reflects why you are reporting the user.
  5. Click Report and Remove.
  6. Click All messages by the user.
  7. Click the Report to Zoom toggle to remove all messages sent by the user, but without submitting an incident report to Zoom.
  8. Click Continue.
  9. Click Yes, Remove User Messages.
  10. Click Done.

Remove a user and all chat messages sent by the user from an event lobby

  1. In the bottom-left corner of the lobby, click Report and Remove.
  2. Click the Where did the problem occur? drop-down menu, then select where the problem occurred.
  3. In the Who do you want to report? box, confirm the name of the user you want to report.
  4. Click the What happened? drop-down menu, then select the option that best reflects why you are reporting the user.
  5. Click Report and Remove.
  6. Click User and all their messages.
  7. Click Continue.
  8. Click Yes, Send Report & Remove User and Message.
  9. Click Done.

How to report and remove a recording

Reporting and removing a recording as an account admin, host, or moderator makes it clear a recording has been removed due to issues with the content; all account admins, hosts, and moderators will be notified via email when a recording has been reported and removed. This differs from unpublishing a recording from an event lobby or hub, and removing a video when a recording no longer needs to be made available for viewing.

When a recording:

To report and remove a recording:

  1. Sign in to Zoom Events.
  2. Watch a recording.
  3. Under the recording, click Report Recording .
  4. Under Timestamp of Issue, enter the time when the material you want to report occurs in the hr, min, and sec fields.
  5. (Optional) Click Add to add another timestamp.
  6. (Optional) Select Include screenshot to include a screenshot.
  7. Use the What happened? drop-down menu to select the reason you are reporting the recording.
  8. Under Who do you want to report this incident to?, select one or both of the recipients:
    • Event Organizer: The incident will be reported to the event organizer, which includes all event moderations.
    • (Optional) Zoom: The incident will be reported to Zoom's Trust and Safety team.
  9. Click Remove Video.

If you report the video to Zoom, you will also be asked to confirm your report via email and fill out the Zoom Trust and Safety form. If the Trust and Safety team decides to take down the recording, the recording will no longer be available for viewing, and this action cannot be undone by a moderator in the moderation dashboard.