Eighteen minutes into state League of Women Voters listening session at Peterborough Town Library Tuesday night, in which state Rep. Jonah Wheeler addressed his vote on House Bill 148, the stream was “Zoom-bombed,” in the words of League of Women Voters of New Hampshire President Liz Tentarelli.

“Somebody deliberately wanted to disrupt this forum,” she said. “I don’t know who it was, and I don’t know how they did it.”

Tentarelli, who was managing the stream, said the attack included loud noises, flashing lights and pornographic images. Kate Coon of the Peterborough Plus unit of the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire, who was watching the stream, said there was also racial content.

“It was appalling,” Coon said.

Tentarelli said she tried to see if there was a way she could stop what was happening, but “realized after about 30 seconds that I could not,” so she shut down the stream.

Previous listening sessions with Wheeler, fellow state Rep. Peter Leishman and Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill were in the Eben Jones Classroom at the Peterborough Town Library, but Tuesday night’s session was moved to the larger 1833 Room. The Zoom session also had the maximum audience of 100 people.

“This one obviously had a much larger audience because of Representative Wheeler’s stance on the floor last week,” Tentarelli said, referring to Wheeler’s support for a bill that would allow government entities and businesses to separate bathrooms and locker rooms based on biological sex and his speech on the House floor defending that position.

Leishman also supported the bill, but was not at Wednesday’s listening session.

Tentarelli said the Zoom link had been published publicly and was on the League’s website, and that while she was monitoring the viewers on the stream, “those were just names,” and she does not know if the hacker was on the call.

Marcia King of Peterborough Plus said the chapter and Tentarelli were going to meet Wednesday to discuss how to keep an attack from happening again. Although he did not have first-hand knowledge of Tuesday night’s events, Tyler Strickland, sales and marketing manager for Sequoya Technologies Group in Peterborough, cited possibilities that included security settings for the Zoom session allowing attendees to post screenshots and images.

“There are settings that can restrict what attendees can do,” he said.

Strickland also said it’s “possible but not guaranteed” that the hack would be traceable, but it would be more difficult for a totally public meeting like Tuesday’s than an invitation-only meeting.

“You would probably have to get the parent company of Zoom involved,” he said.

Strickland added that more often than not, hacks are less about brilliant computer work and more about opportunity.

“It doesn’t require advanced knowledge of computer science,” he said.

Tentarelli she was aware of a similar attack at a candidate forum in the Conway area during COVID.

“I thought people had gotten over that,” she said. “I certainly was not expecting this to happen.”