Privacy and Pinning

[GregWH]

I am struggling to understand the benefit of pinning a participant, without their knowledge or consent, and with no ability to control it on the user side other than to go dark.

More and more it seems, Gallery view is a sea of blank blocks or cute pet photos which, while sometimes entertaining, really draw down on any sense of being in a community full of people.

Why is there no user feature to disable pinning so that a person doesn't have to worry about being watched by someone they would prefer not be watched by, or even anyone at all? And really, with Spotlight, Screen Share, Speaker View all putting forth the focus of the discussion, what is the upside of pinning at all? 

[chrismenard7]

Hello, that is a great question. As you mentioned, we have Pin and Spotlight. Here is the difference and when I use each. Spotlight will show the speaker to all participants in the meeting. When you pin a speaker that is just for you.  If I am the host, and have a guest speaker, or even a person I work with that is the main speaker, I tell the speaker I'm going to Spotlight them during the meeting. Everyone see that person. I usually turn that off  when the person is done with their presentation.

Now, I'll be in meetings, where I'm not the host, but there is a main speaker. The host doesn't spotlight them, and I really want to hear what they have to say, but I don't think it is my place to get involved with their meeting, so I'll Pin the speaker. When they are done, I go back to gallery view or a different view. 

I hope this helps. If this answers your question, please click Accept as Solution. 

[GregWH]

Thank you for your response, Chris. While it does address a practical situation where the Pin feature can be useful, the larger question of privacy and less than practical applications still remains. 

I have seen posts from others in these forums about privacy concerns around this, where the end response was "no, Zoom doesn't do that". I would hope a more adequate response, or even better, looking into adding a feature that allows the individual to block others pinning them might be an option here. 

[chrismenard7]

Thanks for getting back. Regarding the privacy concern, users can always turn off their respective video. Even without turning off the video, I'm not sure I see the privacy issue with pinning a video, but Zoom loves feedback! To send feedback to Zoom from the desktop app, click your profile picture - help - Give Feeback (image attached). 

Thank you. Have a good weekend.