Twitter to Live Stream TV News When Tragedy Strikes, Florida Shooting Marks First Test

Social platform will feature more breaking news broadcasts on its app

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Following Thursday’s mass shooting in South Florida, Twitter kept users informed by streaming hours of local news coverage next to users’ respective timelines of tweets.

As a critical information outlet for millions of users, Twitter is doubling down on fighting fake news by partnering with several local outlets to broadcast live during crises, as BuzzFeed News first reported.

“We’re continuing to work on new ways we can surface credible and relevant information to help people stay informed,” Twitter video GM Kayvon Beykpour told BuzzFeed News. “By pairing live video with the conversation on Twitter, there is no faster way to see what’s happening in the world.”

Wednesday’s stream of WSVN 7 Miami’s coverage of the fatal shooting at Broward County’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had about 50,000 concurrent views at its peak, according to Twitter.

Twitter, like Facebook, has been under scrutiny for allowing disinformation to spread during the 2016 U.S. election. Last month, the company said hundreds of thousands of tweets had been sent out by Kremlin-tied trolls before and after the election. Twitter said it would email more than 675,000 American users to let them know they’d interacted with a Russian troll account.

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