Periscope is a live streaming app that allows users to broadcast and watch live video streams from around the world. It raises issues of privacy as live streams can capture and broadcast people and locations without consent. It also enables piracy as streams of copyrighted content like TV shows and sporting events can be viewed without paying. However, it also has potential benefits for education by allowing virtual field trips and class participation for remote students. Journalists have also used it to live stream events like the refugee crisis in Europe.

1. The Periscope App: Piracy, Privacy and Potential
Imagine being able to see what an ordinary person is filming on the other side of the world... live.
Periscope and other live-streaming video apps offer you the chance to teleport across the planet and see
what other users are witnessing, as it happens. Pete Turner explores the pros and cons of Periscoping.
If you’re still spending countless hours on Snapchat, Vine or Instagram, try wasting some time on Periscope. You may
perhaps have missed the headlines on January 6th 2016, when Periscope became big news as people started embracing
the app in order to watch a live stream of a puddle. Yes, a puddle. Well, to be fair, people were hooked to this live stream
because they were enjoying studying people’s attempts to negotiate their way around this puddle.
#DrummondPuddleWatch started trending on Twitter, and over 20,000 Periscope-users logged in to peruse the video of
people navigating their way across a comically large pavement lake. But Periscope is so much more than a bit of comic
puddle-watching, and should be on every Media student’s radar.
What is Periscope?
Periscope is an app that was purchased by Twitter before it was even launched. It can be downloaded onto iOS or Android
devices. If you’ve heard of Meerkat, Periscope is very similar, just with a few of the kinks ironed out. When you start
filming a Periscope feed, you click to Tweet that a session is now live. Anyone following you on Twitter or searching on
Periscope can watch your live stream. They can comment live on what is occurring, ‘like’ with virtual hearts, or just sit and
watch passively as you film. The video stays up on your host page for 24 hours, in case anyone wishes to replay what was
your live stream, and then it disappears.
For example, this afternoon as I write this, if I want to watch what’s going on in Phuket, Thailand, I log in to Periscope,
search the map to see if there is anyone live in Phuket using the app to film their surroundings, and then jump onto their
stream and enjoy. It’san amazing tool of semi-transportation; and just as Twitter has become a great way of reading
about news as it happens, Periscope is taking this to a new level, where users are actually able to see newsworthy events
as they develop.
Privacy
One of the biggest concerns about the rise of apps like Periscope is privacy. As it is, most of us have already kissed
goodbye to our own rights to privacy by putting our lives online. With Facebook photos and YouTube videos, we do at
least have a chance of getting them taken down if we feel we arerepresented unfairly or negatively, and people still have
to give permission to be photographed or videoed for public consumption; but what if a stream is already going live? Has
the damage already potentially been done? Bullies could broadcast their victim’s humiliation to the world without a
second’s compassionate thought. People who might prefer not to be seen in certain places could be captured by a
Periscope user, and then have to explain themselves out of very tricky situations.
Twitter and Periscope also share data with companies like Ditto which arescanning images for branded content.
According to Twitter, all of the data in your Tweets or Periscope videos could potentially be shared with third parties such
as ‘search engines, developers, and publishers that integrateTwitter content into their services, and institutions such as
universities and public health agencies that analyse the information for trends and insights’. Big Brother is watching us
closer than ever, especially if we invite him into our Periscope streams.
We also need to consider the issue of location data. Young people need to be particularly awarethat Periscope will be
able to find their location, even if they have tried to turn off GPS on their phones. If you’re streaming a video live, anyone
could potentially know exactly where you are – and how to find you. Sounds ominous? It’sdefinitely something worth
being awareof. For example, as I filmed and live-streamed from a forest where I was walking my dog, a Periscope-user
messaged me asking, ‘what forest u in?’ Do I really want to give out this information to a stranger? The problem is,
whether I answer or not, it would be all too easy for this user to find out where I am.

2. Piracy
Most social media users know what they’re getting themselves into. The entertainment industry, on the other hand, has
been hit by Periscope and is still struggling with how to deal with it. The two most famous examples so far have been
Periscope-users live-streaming a video of their TV screens as they watch the Game of Thrones Season Five premiere, and
the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao boxing match. Those who haven’t paid to subscribe to HBO could login to Periscope and find
a handy live-stream of someone using their phone to film the screen as they watched the Gameof Thrones premiere.
Similarly, if you weren’t willing to fork out (£20 in the UK, $65 in the US!) to watch the biggest boxing event of the century,
you could simply watcha live-stream:
countless people who did pay for the fight used their smartphones to re-transmit the fight to users of Periscope and, to a
lesser extent, rival app Meerkat. Each stream reached hundreds or thousands of non-paying fans with a picture quality that
was shaky and pixelated, yet still quite adequate.
Variety
While HBO and others insist that Periscope takedown these copyright-infringing streams (and Periscope quickly obliges),
the damage has already been done. Imaginethe potential to go live to any music festival in the world this summer, and all
from the dry, comfortable sofa of your house. You don’t even need to put your wellies on! All those people who spend
entire gigs with their phones in the air pointing towards the stage could be live-streaming those videos, rather than
putting them on YouTube when they get home.
Potential
Despite the risks of copyright infringement and loss of earnings for artists, festivals, subscription channels and filmmakers,
Periscope abounds with possibilities. As a teacher, I’mexcited about how I could use it in the classroom. And as a student,
you should be even more attuned to the prospective uses of Periscope. Imagine crossing the globe in a geography class to
connect with a student in say, Brazil. How about joining my field trip to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour the
next time I take some students? You (or your teachers) could take virtual tours of other schools and colleges to see how
they do things. If I have an absent student in one of my classes, I could ask another to set up a Periscope stream so that
the missing student could tune in live and not miss a thing.
The democratisation of media production can continue in even more exciting ways. People who feel under-represented or
misrepresented in traditional mainstream media can challenge these dominant representations by picking up a phone and
‘Periscoping’ the reality of their own lives to the world. Many journalists have already discovered the potential for using
Periscope. Paul Ronzheimer made the journey from the Greek island Kos to Germany with a group of Syrian refugees,
broadcasting live videos via Periscope as he went. He told The Guardian:
at the beginning I had about 1,500 followers, but now I have around 33,000. It became really big: one of the videos was
played and replayed more than 90,000 times.
The unedited nature of these videos is what makes them so appealing to many Periscope users.
The first time I heard about Periscope, a student told me that it was used on the night of the November 2015 Paris attacks.
As events unfolded, some people on the streets of the city were already filming what they saw and sharing it with others
via Periscope. You could be a voyeur at the scene of the crime instantly. It’s an exciting development – albeit a little
worrying. Periscope has even been used to catch a drink driver who was live-streaming a video of herself behind the
wheel and attempting to steer herself home while admitting to being inebriated. Please, don’t be like that individual!
While some might be using it merely to keep an eye on a puddle, Periscope is a fascinating app that has potentially huge
consequences for the media industries, audiences and the representation of social groups. You might not want to spend
hours glued to it, but it’s worth poking your head up into the air to keep an eye on what’s going on.