Finally, meeting hosts now have the tool to mute annoying participants until locks are manually disabled. Google announced this new feature on Thursday in a move that will help to maintain some decorum during meetings.
It is often a big issue in meetings when the host must deal with problematic participants. There is always an annoying participant that must be muted for others to have a healthy conversation. More often that not, the host deals with someone who does not know how to turn off his mic or who just wants to be annoying for the sake of it.
The video and audio lock feature give you the edge when it comes to controlling a meeting. Besides turning off the audio of the problematic participant, you can also turn off his camera. This will turn his camera off until you unblock him in the main breakout rooms.
Google had earlier in the year introduced the ability for meeting hosts to mute everyone all at once. The new mute feature, however, makes gaining control of your meeting easier. Once a participant has been muted, he lacks the ability to unmute himself.
“Participants using versions of the Android and iOS apps that do not support audio and video locks will be removed from the meeting if the host or co-host turns on either of the locks,” a Google blog post stated. “If they attempt to join a meeting that has either of these locks enabled they will be prompted to update their app or use another device to join the meeting. Turning off audio or video locks will allow these participants to rejoin the meeting.”
Back in August, Meet made it possible to add up to 25 co-hosts per meeting. The new option was part of a couple of other changes announced by Google at the time. The co-hosts will be able to access and utilize the host controls once they have been added by the main host.
The exact control that will be available depends on whether you are using Meet as a regular user or as part of a Google Workplace team. What that means is that controls will be determined by the kind of user that you are.
In a nutshell, Google has enabled you to assign up to 25 co-hosts per meeting—and they will have access to host controls. This will allow them to restrict who can share their screen and send chat messages. This will also enable you to mute all participants with a single click, bring the meeting to an end, and control who has access to the meeting.
