I wish this was a joke
Over the course of the pandemic, Zoom has been both a blessing and a curse as it’s allowed us to continue on with business as usual. It does have its vulnerabilities like any other software, however, and that has never been more apparent than during a meeting of the Italian Senate about data transparency in politics yesterday. About a half-hour into the three-hour official government meeting, as one of last year’s Nobel Prize winners in physics Giorgio Parisi was being introduced, the senate feed was suddenly interrupted by unofficial Final Fantasy porn featuring Tifa Lockhart.
The porn continued on for an agonizing thirty seconds, while the audio lasted even longer as host and Five Star Movement Senator Maria Laura Mantovani frantically tried to turn it off with the help of her assistant. Parisi continues on with his prepared points after the porn is shut down, and I’m honestly impressed at his level of professionalism. The Zoom call was populated by both live and remote participants, and while some blamed hackers for the incident, we don’t really have any way of knowing what happened for sure.
To top it all off, the meeting was being live-streamed to both Facebook and the Italian equivalent of C-SPAN. While the clip has been removed from the official VOD, it’s still making the rounds online (view at your own risk, obviously).
https://twitter.com/FrancescoDonald/status/1483447868837044224
Thankfully the meeting was able to continue on as usual after the feed was shut down, but I imagine it was a bit more difficult to focus afterward.
Look, I’m not trying to kink shame anyone, but there’s a time and place for these things, and a government Zoom call just ain’t it. This is certainly one of the weirder things I’ve witnessed in 2022, but hey, the year just started, right?
