Twitter has announced plans to livestream breaking news on its platform. According to The Verge, the micro-blogging social platform has partnered with several news stations throughout the United States, giving them the rights to stream important news in real time.
When breaking news happens, Twitter will livestream coverage provided by its news partners. Twitter users can find these livestreams next to their timeline, and clicking it displays relevant tweets associated with the event.
One potential benefit of Twitter’s livestreaming news is authenticity. Fake news has become a serious problem on social media. Nefarious people and organizations intentionally publish inaccurate news to deceive the public and forward their own agenda. According to Statista, social media is the primary platform on which fake news is distributed. Livestreaming news from trusted news stations, however, may help to combat fake news. Since Twitter is only livestreaming news from participating news stations, nefarious users can’t livestream their own coverage.
Millions of people already use Twitter to find information on news and current events. On the day of the 2016 presidential election, users sent more than 40 million tweets about the election. With its focus on short messages consisting of 280 or fewer characters and use of hashtags, it offers a convenient and user-friendly way to find information. Users can search for a hashtag related to a specific event to find related tweets.
Of course, livestreaming has become increasingly popular in recent years. From YouTube and Vimeo to Facebook and Twitter, countless platforms now support livestreaming video. According to Cisco, livestreaming will grow by 1,500 percent from 2016 to 2021, attesting to its popularity.
With Twitter’s latest push for livestreaming news, we’ll probably see a growing numbers of social media users turn to the platform for coverage on breaking news. After all, most users prefer the most recent, up-to-date information on events, and livestreaming provides just that.
Dil Bole Oberoi
