Cruel trolls hijack family’s virtual funeral with racist SpongeBob images and gay porn
(Photo by Mayron Oliveira on Unsplash)
A family in North Carolina had their funeral service cruelly interrupted when a troll hacked the Zoom feed for those who couldn’t be there in person, replacing the stream with gay pornography and racist images.
The service was to commemorate the life and death of Linda Rivera of Lafayetteville. Her husband of 42 years, Joe Rivera, spoke to local news publication WRAL about the ordeal.
“First, I saw my son going towards the back. So I was trying to see… what’s going on. So I went back there and said, ‘Larry, what’s going on?’ He said, ‘Pop, you’re not going to believe it. This is what’s going on,'” Rivera explained.
It was at this point the immediate family realised the livestream had been intercepted and replaced with vulgar and racist imagery including “gay pornography, naked women and SpongeBob calling the family the n-word”.
Although those who were present in the church – about 150 people, including children – were only subjected to the crude imagery on monitors for about 30 seconds, it is believed it was visible to those watching remotely for up to 20 minutes before somebody intervened.
“We’re received screenshots from Africa, India, Korea, Hawaii and all over the United States,” said Larry Rivera.
The funeral director of Wiseman Mortuary, Valdus Lockhart, expressed his sincerest apologies for the incident, explaining it wasn’t the first time they had experienced technical difficulties when using Zoom.
“I am very sorry that it happened,” said Lockhart. “It is hard to take control of it. We have to report it to Zoom. We removed those people from the rooms. Occasionally, we have to lock the meetings so others can’t get in.”
Lockhart also explained there wasn’t a professional technician on site to take control of the Zoom but they intend to hire someone to be responsible for this in future to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
The family also confirmed to the publication that following the unfortunate incident, the funeral proceeded without any further issues.
