French teen live-streams her suicide on Periscope: Report

French officials are currently looking into the death of a young woman who jumped in front of a train and recorded it live on live streaming app Periscope. However, the broadcast has been taken down. Prosecutor Eric Lallement said in a statement to New York Times, “This person allegedly sent an SMS to one of her close relations, several minutes before her death, to announce her intentions. Furthermore, she allegedly made statements to internet users, via the Periscope application, to explain her act.” Twitter-owned Periscope stated, “We do not comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons” and the community guidelines make it clear that “Periscope is intended to be open and safe.” This isn’t the first time a live streaming service has been scrutinized for being used for a wrong reason. According to the report, a 17-year-old girl in the US was allegedly raped and filmed live on Periscope. It was recorded by a friend who was also present at the scene. Micro-blogging website Twitter will soon roll out an update of its Periscope live video app that will enable users broadcast live directly from a drone and to save broadcasts beyond 24 hours. Periscope has named China-based drone company DJI to support its livestreamed videos, saying that the update will give people the ability to search for broadcasts by title or topic.