UK Prime Minister David Cameron is to appear in BuzzFeed’s EU referendum event, which will be streamed using Facebook Live on June 10th.
The Facebook Live “townhall” discussion will be moderated by editors from Buzzfeed and hosted on the publication’s UK Facebook page.
Cameron will be joined by voices from the Remain and Leave campaigns as part of the Facebook Live all day event.
The event will consist of one-to-one sessions spread across the day, and each panellist will be quizzed on their arguments. Their reasoning will be subjected to instant commentary and analysis on the BuzzFeed site.
“The referendum on 23 June is the most important vote in our country for a generation and the BuzzFeed News and Facebook event is a great chance to debate what sort of future we want for our country,” said Cameron in a statement.
The event will be moderated by BuzzFeed News political editor Jim Waterson and senior political correspondent Emily Ashton. Cameron’s segment will be at 5pm BST.
“As we enter the final three weeks of the campaign, referendum discussion on Facebook is really heating up,” said Theo Thomas, a Facebook government and politics specialist, in a statement. “Millions of people have joined the debate on Facebook to discuss the issues they care about and the likely repercussions of a Yes or No vote.”
Since launching Facebook Live last November, the social network’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has used it often to interact with his army of followers. Facebook is encouraging more people to embrace its live-streaming feature, a rival to the likes of Twitter-owned Periscope, to engage members about timely topics.
The momentum of the Brexit discussion will likely give Facebook Live a big boost in awareness.
“The EU referendum is the biggest political story of the year and we are very much looking forward to bringing this debate to life with our audience in new and compelling ways, using new technologies,” said Janine Gibson, editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed UK.
The EU vote takes place on 23 June.