An American college student was horrified to learn — too late — that her professor can read all of the 'private' messages she send...
An American college student was horrified to learn — too late — that her professor can read all of the 'private' messages she sends on Zoom.
The young woman, Faith, has been trading casual messages — with some profanity — with other students, thinking that that the words were kept between them.
But when she received an email from her angry professor, she learned that the educator has been reading what she wrote all along.
Whoops! An American college student named Faith was horrified to learn — too late — that her professor can read all of the 'private' messages she sends on Zoom
No-no: Her professor emailed Faith to say that her messages weren't 'appropriate' and were 'very disruptive'
Faith shared the email on TikTok, including her own mortified reaction to it.
'Dear Faith,' the email read. 'I am reaching out to inform you that I can see everything you write in the class discussion.
'My class session is not the appropriate time to be sending messages like "I'm a bougie a**, rachet a**, freak b****."
'It's very disruptive to the class and I do NOT condone this kind of behavior during my lectures.
'I strongly advise you to keep the inappropriate comments to yourself from now on or else it will jeopardize your final grade for this course,' Professor Mclellan concluded.
Faith clearly found the revelation both funny and embarrassing, and also shared it on Twitter.
'I didn’t know my professor could view my “private” convos on zoom,' she wrote, while adding in a comment on TikTok that the message from her professor 'caught her off guard'.
Viral: Faith shared the email on TikTok and Twitter, including her own reaction to it
Reaction: Faith clearly found the revelation both funny and embarrassing
'It caught me so off guard,' she said, before revealing: 'I apologized to her.'
Her video has since been viewed over 2.2. million times on Twitter, and dozens of other students and professors have chimed in with their own stories and warnings.
'Ya’ll. Please quit it lol. WE CAN SEE EVERYTHING,' wrote one teacher.
'We keep trying to warn ya'll about messages on zoom,' responded another.
'When I end meetings that I hosted I can see all chats! Even the private ones. You get like a transcript of the meeting!' said a third.
Some students said that they learned the hard way that professors can not only read messages, but they can unmute students' microphones, too.
'They have to much power on that damn app,' wrote one student. 'I was talking s*** and unaware that my professor had UNMUTED me,' wrote one.
'My professor deada** said on zoom they can unmute your mic and call on you,' said another.
Faith later followed up, telling Twitter users that she'd read all the warnings from other professors.
'Y’all might as well send your sorry email before they confront you,' she wrote. 'And yes I apologized to that lady.'
Yikes! Faith later posted an update, saying she had heard from several professors confirming that nothing is private in Zoom classes
Be careful! Several other professors agreed and shared warnings
Oh no! Several students said that professors can even unmute microphones
Earlier this month, one eagle-eyed professor at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut issued a warning to Zoom users about engaging in 'private' chats during calls, after discovering that the in-meeting chats can actually be saved automatically - meaning everyone in the conference call can see exactly what you're up to.
'FYI: If you're having a committee meeting via Zoom and you use the chat function to privately write to someone, your colleagues may not see it in real time, but it shows up when the chat is downloaded and put in the minutes folder,' Hillary Haldane, Professor of Anthropology and Director of General Education at Quinnipiac, wrote on Twitter.
On its website, Zoom explains that the in-meeting chat function allows you to send messages to other users within a meeting.
You can send a private message to an individual user or you can send a message to the entire group.
However, what many people don't realize is that the in-meeting chats can be saved either manually or automatically - depending on the settings.
If you're unlucky, the 'auto-save chat' will automatically save the entire in-meeting chat on the computer - and the host, who in this case is Faith's professor - can then see everything that has been sent.
No comments