Facebook brings livestreams to everyone, no account needed

People like to socialize despite all the introvert memes you might’ve seen. During the current coronavirus outbreak, it quickly became clear that people need to stay connected. The use of messaging services like Skype, Snapchat, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger has skyrocketed during the health crisis, and livestream services have had to reduce quality to cope with the increased traffic.

Now, after Facebook reported a spike in users activity and overloaded servers, the company has apparently resolved the issues, as a new feature is in the works. The social network plans to allow access to livestream material to the general public, no account needed. The option is already available for desktop users but now the company is bringing it to smartphones too. If you’re in Europe though, video might be a bit on the low-quality side of things as Facebook downgraded bitrate in the COVID-19 struck countries to cope with demand.

There’s another interesting option for users without a smartphone or a reliable broadband connection. Facebook will offer something called "Public Switch Telephone Network," which will allow people to listen to audio from livestreams by dialing a toll-free telephone number. The company said that this feature is supposed to ease the traffic demand but it’s intended for people without access to the internet in the first place, so it’s hard to see how this is going to work.

Furthermore, allowing non-Facebook users to watch livestreams on the platform may in result increase the strain on the servers even more. The feature is already available on Android devices and will be rolling out for iOS in the following weeks.