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It’s day one of your period and you’re not a happy woman. Your uterus is throbbing. Your boyfriend is antagonizing you. The vending machine is out of Funyuns. Your boss just told you that you have to work late. All you keep thinking about is how you wish you could hop into Star Trek’s Transporter and teleport yourself to another planet. Like, ASAP.
Well, it turns out, you sort of … can. Although you technically can’t be broken down into little particles of energy only to be beamed to another spacecraft (not yet, anyway), you can be anywhere on earth at any moment in time.
With the Periscope app, you have the capability of immersing yourself into another person’s experience from anywhere around the world. You can be at an un-televised protest in Philly, a quaint beach in England or as co-developer Kayvon Beykpour, told Business Insider, you can “witness a major fire in San Francisco, a child’s first steps [or] a man’s cancer treatment.”
It’s all very heartwarming and Periscope knows that. So, the business gives users the ability to not only comment or ask questions during someone’s broadcast, but you can also “heart” and keep “hearting” someone’s live video stream.
While this Twitter-owned app truly is an incredible way to transport yourself and connect with people from all over the globe, it does come with its downfalls.
Earlier this year, a young woman used the app to advertise herself driving drunk and a teenager has been accused of live-streaming her friend being raped. And in an even more unfortunate situation, it has been reported that some have used the app to live broadcast their suicides.
While live-streaming makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to censor content, the company has still set forth Terms of Use that cover copyrights and video piracy. Last year, Periscope faced legal troubles due to some of its users live-streaming the finale of “Game of Thrones” and the professional boxing fight of Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao, which led to a violation of the terms.
But despite the live reporting of insensitive material and abuse of video piracy, the app that allows its users to be anywhere at anytime has over 200 million broadcasts.
