Google Meet will boot you from the meeting if you’re there alone
A while back, I had mistakenly entered a Google Meet session one hour earlier than everyone else. Due to a misunderstanding of time zones, I had to do a bit of waiting before other people were able to join me. However, a recent update to Google’s video-conferencing service might prevent this unfortunate (and frankly, hilarious) situation from happening to anyone else.
Google has announced that it will be implementing an update that will prompt users to leave the meeting should they be the only ones to show up. For example, if someone were to log into a group meeting without anyone else following them within the first few minutes, they will receive a notification asking if they are still present and would like to leave the call. Failure to attend to the prompt within two minutes will result in the user getting kicked out of the current session.
According to Google, the update will be released on April 11, with priority for desktop and iOS devices. Android users will also receive the update, but at an unspecified date in the future. The company stated that this feature is intended to prevent scenarios where video or audio feed is unintentionally shared. It is optional though, and you can choose to turn it off through a settings toggle.
Additionally, some tweaks were made to Google Meet’s Host and Co-Host features, which will now be located under a dedicated “Host Controls” menu.
Google Meet is one of many video conferencing apps and services that rose to prominence in the past couple of years, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic back in 2020. With many organizations and businesses choosing to allow people to work from home, the need for video calls and messages skyrocketed, and similar services like Zoom, Telegram and WhatsApp saw a rise in their respective userbase.
Source: Google