Social media platforms lose the allure of live streaming

Eighteen months later, neither company has reported live viewing numbers for the Kavanaugh hearings.

• Facebook says it's not releasing a number this time. Twitter says it's because the technology has become ubiquitous. "Every news outlet is streaming live during every major event so we’re not releasing numbers anymore," says a Twitter spokesperson.

The bottom line: There's still no good way to measure how many people actually watched the hearing (or any major live event for that matter) without some sort of cross-platform video standard. But we do know that viewers expect to see live feeds of any major national events on their phones. It's the new normal.