A meeting link used to hold and broadcast Novak Djokovic’s court hearing this morning ended up spicier than expected when porn popped up on the video before the court was in session.
The Federal Circuit Court hearing over Djokovic’s deportation from detention in Melbourne’s Park Hotel back to Serbia over his cancelled visa was due to start at 10am. Technical issues over the livestream link pushed its start back by 45 minutes.
During the delay, court staff worked to get the broadcast up and running.
Journalist Zac Crellin tweeted that he was waiting for the hearing to start on a Microsoft Teams link with around 200 viewers, which was shared by the court.
Seems it was pretty chaotic.
someone has taken over the court’s microsoft teams broadcast for the novak djokovic hearing and is displaying porn pic.twitter.com/v9ZP5WtzU3
— Zac Crellin (@zacrellin) January 9, 2022
He wrote: “someone has taken over the court’s microsoft teams broadcast for the novak djokovic hearing and is displaying porn.
“The broadcast has already begun at this old link with around 200 viewers, including people claiming to be members of the serbian press. guests are intermittently blasting folk music & meme sounds.”
The court’s digital practice manager closed the Microsoft Teams link when it was pointed out, rather blatantly, that it was easily exploitable. They then interacted with guests to help them find the new link.
Only a couple hundred people supposedly saw the god-tier chaos unfold, but it’s truly all we could expect from day 10 of 2022.
The original link was quickly deleted, and the livestream of the hearing has since activated.
About an hour in, the official hearing was interrupted by a mysterious Peter (Guest) who popped up in the video meeting link with his audio on. Peter said nothing but “We’re in!” before Judge Anthony Kelly sternly told him off and issued a warning that any uninvited guests in the video could max out the meeting’s bandwidth.
A further 30 minutes in the meeting crashed entirely due to too many people trying to get in, an organiser of one livestream feed confirmed.
The livestream continued with a blank screen for more than an hour. The broadcaster chimed in to say: “everyone’s having the same issue”.
“This is because you’ve got some little smart arses who’ve basically blocked the bandwidth,” he said.
Yep, we’re still having Zoom issues in 2022.
Djokovic entered Australia last week ahead of the Aus Open after receiving a “medical exemption” from Tennis Australia from the vaccination requirement for players on the grounds that he had recently recovered from COVID-19.
But when he arrived in Melbourne, he was notified by border officials that his visa had been cancelled for lack of appropriate evidence required for his vaccine exemption and his visa application.
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt had previously written to Tennis Australia that players wishing to enter Australia without quarantining had to be fully vaccinated. He wrote that a previous infection was not a reason for exemption.
Djokovic’s lawyers launched a Federal Circuit Court challenge over his deportation with the hope to secure his release in time for the Aus Open, which begins Jan 17.
The hearing is now underway and we’ll have a verdict for you soon.
