Gubernatorial candidate Aimee Winder Newton along with her running mate John Dougall, took to Twitter to address a "zoombombing" which occurred during a virtual town hall held by Winder Newton Thursday evening.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, candidates have had to find alternative ways to interact with voters while taking necessary health precautions. Zoom is an online video conference application where Winder Newton set up her meeting with the help of the Utah Republican Party.
The meeting began as normal and then hackers took over, posting pornography and racial slurs. Winder Newton said laughing could be heard from the hackers and when moderators of the conference attempted to mute the hackers, they found they were unable to. The hijackers were able to take over administration controls of the call.
The Salt Lake City councilmember and Utah state auditor decided to cut the Zoom meeting short. The running mates then proceed to go live on Facebook and apologized to viewers and continued their town meeting there.
