You’ll soon be able to throw unruly callers off Google Meet calls, and not let them in again

Public Google Meet calls have a common problem - unwanted callers who crash in, start trolling others, and disturb the meet. And this problem is not unique to Google Meet, though, call crashers are an issue on any online meeting portal including Zoom and have been bothering people, and video conferencing apps, for almost two years now (yes, the whole of the pandemic, at this point).

Developers behind these video-conferencing apps have been working on solutions to prevent this, and it seems that Google Meet might have an effective solution that can keep call crashers away, even permanently.

Google Meet already allowed users to throw people off a call, but as announced in a recent blog post, more has been added to that feature. Now, when you kick someone off a call, you will be given further options to block them straight out and never let them join the call again. This option comes additionally above the existing option to report someone for abuse.

So far, Google Meet’s block functionality was built into the service’s “knocking” feature. In this, if a participant got rejected twice from joining a call, they would not be allowed to knock to enter again throughout the rest of the call.

Google has added to this and will now allow you to get rid of a caller completely. The company suggests that the ‘block’ function be used only when it is ‘absolutely necessary’ or with discretion. Now, with the new feature, annoying call crashers can be dealt with better, blocked, and prevented from joining the call, and also be held accountable for their bad behaviour with the report option.

The new feature is going to roll out gradually on Google Meet over the next 15 days and should automatically be available on the desktop. For Android and iOS apps, you might need to update the app to see the new prompt. So, in case you do not see it, head over to the app store and check for the update.

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