Fact Check: Can Zoom or Google Meet Hosts see apps participants are using?
A message that Google meet and Zoom have introduced new features is viral on social media. Users claim that the host of the meet will be able to know which app the participants are using in the background
By Tejal Sinha Published on 11 Jun 2021 10:44 AM GMT
Hyderabad: A message that Google meet and Zoom have introduced new features is viral on social media.
Users claim that the host of the meet will be able to know which app the participants are using in the background.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210611033820/https://www.facebook.com/login/?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fstory.php%3Fstory_fbid%3D489744165434703%26id%3D100031973712123%26scmts%3Dscwspsdd
Fact Check
The claim is False
Claim 1: NewsMeter firstly tried to search for reports that would prove the claim. However, we did not find any such reports.
We then visited the Google website and searched about the new features the company has introduced for teachers or the hosts. However, there were no such features mentioned on the website that the host can see the apps being used in your background.
The products and features planned for Google Workspace, including for Google Meet, are available on its "Help Center" or "How it works" section.
https://apps.google.com/intl/
We also noticed that the viral tweet had a mention of 'TwitterDeck' while the original tweets by Google India had a mention of 'TweetDeck'
Claim 2: The second post that claimed to have been tweeted by Zoom was also False. There was no such Twitter account (@zoom_us). The official Twitter handle of zoom is @zoom.
We then tried to search for reports and found March 25, 2020 report titled "Does Zoom Really Monitor Which Apps You're Using on a Call?"
The report had stated that while the host can choose to enable or disable attention tracking, people on the call aren't shown whether attention tracking is enabled or not. There's no warning that you'll be tracked in this way.
https://www.howtogeek.com/
An official statement was also released by zoom by replying to a Twitter user on March 22, 2020.
NewsMeter found that both the viral posts had quoted the same sentence which is not possible to be tweeted by two different companies.
Evidently, the viral posts are False. There are no official statements by the companies to prove that Google and Zoom have introduced a new feature in which the host will be able to see which app the participants are using in the background.
