Snapchat’s lenses have made augmented-reality selfie filters all the rage on social media, and Facebook — with its own Masks feature — enabled users to contort and animate their faces with a variety of effects this Halloween. Now, livestreaming competitor Periscope is looking to get in on the action ahead of Election Day.
For the next week, the platform announced today, users will have the option of broadcasting using Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump masks — though the feature will only be available for iOS devices. “We hope this is an entertaining way to have conversations and raise awareness around the election and the importance of voting,” the team wrote in a blog post. However, Periscope’s masks don’t appear to transform users’ faces in the vein of Snapchat’s Lenses or Facebook’s Masks. Rather, they simply overlay broadcasters’ faces with images of Clinton and Trump.
Periscope notes that its platform has come to play an increasingly important role in today’s political conversations — including when House Democrats broadcast a sit-in over the summer for gun control on both Periscope and Facebook Live.
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While this marks the platform’s first time experimenting with masks, Periscope reiterated in the blog post that it is working on additional tools to help users create compelling live content. Last month, the company announced Producer, which enables broadcasters to stream high-quality live video using external, professional-grade cameras, and in September, Periscope unveiled its VIP Program — a benefits initiative aimed at giving top broadcasters opportunities and tools to help grow their audiences.
