Racial slurs, Nazi imagery interrupt Zoom event, Miami State Attorney candidate says

The lawyer challenging Miami-Dade’s longtime state attorney says a campaign Zoom meeting was interrupted by hackers who broadcast racist slurs and “Nazi imagery.”

Melba Pearson, a former prosecutor and deputy director of Miami’s American Civil Liberties Union, said on Monday that she reported the incident to the FBI, as well as Zoom. The incident happened Friday night during an online event, which was simultaneously broadcast on Facebook.

Cybersecurity has become a major issue for Zoom, the popular video conferencing site that has skyrocketed in use as the coronavirus pandemic has forced huge swaths of the world’s labor force to work from home. The technology has become particular vital for the public sector: Across South Florida, court hearings, city council meetings and teacher gatherings are all regularly being held on Zoom.

But the virtual meetings have attracted online trolls bent on disruption in what have become called “Zoom bombs.”

In Oregon, authorities are investigating Ku Klux Klan imagery broadcast in a church Zoom meeting as a possible hate crime. A Holocaust memorial event in Germany was likewise Zoom bombed with images of Hitler. Miami-Dade teachers have also reported users insulting teachers during their virtual classrooms.

In Pearson’s case, she is running as a criminal justice reform candidate challenging longtime State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, who has suspended campaign activities because of the ongoing coronavirus crisis.

Pearson is the first African-American woman to qualify as a ballot candidate for the position in Miami-Dade. (A write-in candidate, lawyer Michele Samaroo, ran eight years ago.)

Both Pearson and Fernandez Rundle are Democrats and will square off during the August primary. The candidate filing deadline was on Friday. Because no other candidates qualified to be on the ballot, the primary election will be open to all voters: Democrats, Republicans, third-party members and those with no party affiliation.

Pearson said the Zoom event Friday evening was to celebrate her officially qualifying for the ballot. Ten minutes into the event, as a DJ was playing music, people began hearing the n-word being spoken, she said. A tech coordinator muted the participants, of which there were about 20 on Zoom, along with others watching on Facebook Live.

“That didn’t work, even though everyone’s microphone was muted,” Pearson said. “The slurs kept coming.”

Pearson said the hacker, or hackers, alluded to her work for “social justice” reform. The event was cut off, then restarted under the same link. But when it was restarted, images of swastikas were broadcast on the feed, causing Pearson to shut down the event entirely, she said.

Peason said her campaign deleted the event from Facebook to not give the hackers a platform on her page. Her campaign does not have a Zoom recording of the incident, Pearson said, who said she has asked the company to preserve the video and investigate what happened.

The campaign’s error, Pearson said, was that it publicized a link to the Zoom meeting on social media, which allowed hackers a way in. Future events will use Zoom’s RSVP system, she said.

The FBI’s Miami field office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This story was originally published April 27, 2020 at 12:30 PM.