Google announced in a Workspace blog that Google Meet hosts will soon be able to turn off participants’ microphones or cameras and prevent them from turning them back on. It would be a handy feature for hosts to counter noisy or rowdy attendees from continuously interrupting meetings.
As per the blog post, after rolling out these features, the microphone and camera lock feature will be off by default. Hosts will be able to turn it on if they feel necessary. If your meeting has breakout rooms, any audio and/or video locks made in the main will apply in those, too but locks applied in individual breakout rooms won’t apply to other breakout rooms or the main room.
Google pointed out that if you are using older versions of the apps on iOS or Android that don’t support this feature, you will automatically be kicked out from the meeting if the hosts turn on the locks.
The company specified that if the host turned on the lock ahead of the meeting and you are on one of those older apps, you won’t be able to join the meeting at all. In simple words, if and only if the host turns off the locks then only people using older apps would be able to join a meeting.
Google wrote in the blog post all Google Workspace customers will have access to this feature. The feature has already started rolling from Thursday. As of now, only users on the Rapid Release tracks got it. From 1st November onwards, the feature will also be rolled out for users on the Scheduled Release track.
