Why approve/disapprove hand-raise?

The reason why the host of a virtual meeting must be given the opportunity to approve or disapprove a participant's hand-raise is to help maintain the flow and order of the meeting. By requiring participants to request permission before speaking, the host can manage who gets to speak and when. This can be especially useful in larger meetings where many people want to speak, as it allows the host to prevent multiple people from talking at once and potentially causing confusion or chaos.

However, some virtual meeting platforms allow the host to turn off the hand-raise feature or set it to automatically approve participants' hand-raises. If you would like to turn off the hand-raise approval feature, you should consult the specific virtual meeting platform's documentation or support resources to learn how to do so.

Because the raise hand function is like having someone raise their hand in a live setting. If you approve it, they are granted the ability to speak over VoIP. If you disapprove, then their hand is put down and they don't get the ability to speak over VoIP. 

The dialog can't be turned off, but you could rearrange the pods in the room so that the presenter video is somewhere eles. Say, on the left side of the room?