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Up until this week, Mountain View has not had to contend with online trolls that have set other municipalities on edge with profanity-laced comments and hateful speech. That came to an end on March 26, as several “Zoom bombers” dropped into the City Council meeting Tuesday evening to spew slurs and extreme views of intolerance during the public comment period.
It started with a Zoom participant’s seemingly innocuous request to comment on a presentation. But within a few seconds, it became clear that the speaker’s only intent was to propagate profanities and offensive speech.
The kill button was quickly hit, and council members sat in momentary silence before Mayor Pat Showalter announced, “Alright, well that’s our first Zoom bombing. Hopefully it’s our last.”
The disruption was not entirely unexpected. Last year, several neighboring municipalities experienced a spate of recurring Zoom bombings during their council meetings. In response, the cities overhauled their public comment protocols. Atherton tightened up its login, mute, chat and image-sharing functions, while Redwood City got rid of Zoom comments entirely, asking speakers to send emails that then could be read aloud during meetings.
Preparing for this possibility, the city of Mountain View crafted a statement last year that reaffirmed its commitment to create a “welcoming, safe and inclusive community for all,” while reserving the right to cut off speakers if they contravened the city’s code of conduct. The statement is read aloud by the mayor at the start of every council meeting.
After the first verbal attack on Tuesday, City Manager Kimbra McCarthy intervened, warning online speakers that they would be removed from participating in the meeting if they used language that was inconsistent with the city’s values and morals.
But this did not deter three more online speakers from spouting off comments designed to stoke community divisiveness. In all three cases, it took more than a minute before they were booted from the public comment period.
At the end of the meeting, Council member Lucas Ramirez broached the topic of online trolls directly, asking for direction on how the city should handle these incidents in the future.
Council members proposed different ideas, from limiting the allocated time of virtual comments, to moving them to the end of meetings or disabling them entirely. The proposal to remove online public comments altogether was the least desirable option for Council members Alison Hicks and Emily Ann Ramos.
“I’m hesitant after one Zoom bombing, completely eliminating virtual comments because I know it’s important to a lot of people,” Hicks said.
City Attorney Jennifer Logue also weighed in, stating that time limits for public speakers had to be the same, whether they were participating remotely or in-person.
Ultimately, the council asked city staff to come back with options for how to address Zoom bombing. Ramirez also recommended that the issue be taken up by the Council Policy and Procedures Committee at their next meeting in April.
“We’ve been targeted,” he said. “And it has been my experience… when you’re targeted, you have a bullseye on your back, and they come back, and they come back, and they come back and they come back. And I’d prefer not to deal with them.”