The smartphone has become the center of our political lives - CNET

When Democrat politicians in Washington, DC, attempted to protest gun legislation on the floor of the House of Representatives one late June day, the cameras installed in the chambers were ordered tued off by the opposition. But thanks to Twitter's Periscope and Facebook Live, the Democrats were able to broadcast their sit-in to the country. Even broadcast news networks began republishing their video.

Two weeks later, a woman named Diamond Reynolds tued to her phone when her fiancé, Philando Castile, was shot four times by a police officer during a traffic stop. "Please don't tell me he's dead," she pleaded into the camera on her phone.

A few days later, protesters were among the first to relay dramatic footage of an attack that killed five Dallas police officers and injured seven more.

In each case, the videos were the central way people leaed what happened. But more importantly, their personal nature -- often shot from a phone just inches from a person's face -- made them more human and visceral.

"The images we've seen this week are graphic and heartbreaking," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a statement that week. "It reminds us why coming together to build a more open and connected world is so important -- and how far we still have to go."