Arrest of online pranksters hailed

AMMAN — Three people who accessed an online lecture by a professor at Yarmouk University were arrested on Tuesday for causing the disruption and performing a prank, according to a university statement.

The video, which circulated on social media on Monday, showed three people who entered a lecture on Zoom, and started singing birthday songs and laughing while the professor was attempting to mute them but could not at first, until her students advised her to end the session.

The three people appear at the end of the video, using laughing emojis for “being kicked out” and even promoting their Instagram accounts, asking student viewers to provide them with the timing and link of their lectures so that they can enter and perform more pranks to publish on their social media accounts on Facebook and YouTube.

Yarmouk University thanked authorities for taking quick action in identifying and arresting the pranksters.

“Such unruly and irresponsible behaviour that undermines the Kingdom’s efforts under Royal directives to make remote education succeed…,” the university condemned in the statement.

In the statement, the university thanked the Cyber Crimes Unit and the Public Security Department for identifying the three people and referring them to the judiciary, asserting that its efforts are continuous to provide a proper learning environment that fits the current situation.

“The university will not be lenient in protecting its reputation and the respect of its academic staff, who employ their best efforts to provide quality education to students and serve the march of higher education in the Kingdom,” the statement said, adding that any such attempts to disrupt will not hinder its educational process, urging students to continue their lectures as usual.

Dean of Mass Communication at the university Khalaf Tahat posted on his Facebook account: “Irbid police, Brig. Gen. Ahed Alsharaideh and the Cyber Crime Unit have exerted exceptional efforts in arresting three people, who are not enrolled in Yarmouk University, for disrupting a lecture and violating academic norms.”

“The investigation has expanded to follow up and also detain anyone involved in leaking or passing on information related to the online lectures, be they students or others,” Tahat added in his post.

Commenting on the news of their arrest, Nour Hmeidan commented: “I joke a lot with my professors during lectures but within the boundaries of respect and in the course of the lecture without interruption, yet what they did is so childish and the news of their arrest is good because this is an unbelievable disgrace, people need to know such things have strict penalties.”

“Treating a university professor in such manner right in front of her students is such a shame, a full-fledged adult pranking people this way for likes and followers, so embarrassing and shameful,” Raed Aldin commented on the video.

Hussein Alnababteh commented: “Such a horrible act that undermines society’s values for the sole purpose of collecting ‘likes’ at the expense of morality, which is socially and legally unacceptable.”

“I cannot believe they thought this was okay and shared their names, pictures and accounts so openly,” Fayrooz Mansour commented as well.