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As Democrats began a sit-in Wednesday morning to protest the lack of action on gun control legislation, the House of Representatives went into recess. Recess means no TV cameras allowed in the chamber, which in turn meant no cable news coverage of the historic sit-in still occurring in the House.

And yet without media access, the story exploded. As C-Span was forced to stop rolling its cameras, the story quickly moved to social media with the hashtag #NoBillNoBreak and later #DemocraticSitIn. Pictures of representatives sitting on the floor were posted all over the Internet, people were retweeting representatives' tweets, tuning into Internet live streams and sharing their thoughts on Facebook.

With no television cameras allowed, the phenomenon offered a rare opportunity in 2016: To see how an ongoing news story spreads and evolves when its chief drivers are almost exclusively limited to social media. Here's how it played out, and what the key takeaways are for today's most dominant social video platforms:

Periscope

The live streams began as Representative Scott Peters started broadcasting the sit-in through Periscope.

Before Wednesday, Peters told The Guardian he had never used Periscope before and it was suggested to him by one of his staffers. Since the TV camera blackout was still in place, Peters' broadcasts were then picked up by C-Span and other media outlets.

In years past, a media blackout like the one on Wednesday would mean the public wouldn't get a live view of what was happening inside the House chamber. But this is the era of social media, where a single tweet can find a worldwide audience.

Because Periscope is built on Twitter, the House sit-in played to the strength of that platform: Live, breaking news has always lived first on Twitter, relaying events in real time. It didn't hurt that the media basically lives on Twitter. Periscope generated a lot of the initial attention for the sit-in and, even more remarkably, kept it through the next day.

In response to all the interest, Periscope even created a channel to follow everything being broadcast from the House chamber.

Thanks in large part to Periscope, the world was able to watch the sit-in live and instead of just reading about it. Peters also suggested to fellow participants to start broadcasting alongside him, which added fuel to the growing fire.

Facebook Live

Participants soon started broadcasting via Facebook Live, too, including Senator Cory Booker.

Facebook Live typically has a larger reach than Periscope in terms of viewership, which helped spread the word beyond the Twitterverse and make it part of mainstream conversation. While there's less of a conversation on Facebook, it's a very effective medium for showing an event to the widest possible audience. 

Both Periscope and Facebook Live now archive all broadcasts by default, but an ongoing stream has more staying power on Facebook since it can live at the top of many people's feeds. Certainly, Twitter has moved toward algorithmic-driven feeds as well, but its most engaged users favor more of a real-time experience. That's why the sit-in broadcasts on Facebook have hundreds of thousands of more views then Periscope.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday highlighted how live Internet video, and Facebook Live in particular, helped the sit-in reach a wide audience, with more than 3 million views on Facebook Live alone.

Twitter and Instagram

Consistent posting to Twitter kept fueling engagement with the world outside the House chamber, with images and video clips from participants getting thousands of likes and retweets. 

The sheer amount of content being shared to and spreading around Twitter was how the news of the sit-in spread the fastest, quickly becoming a trending topic and remaining so even after the sit-in ended 24 hours later. 

Popular Twitter users quickly jumped on the hashtags, with supportive tweets and funny pictures getting huge impressions and further spreading the word, from Kim Kardashian to President Barack Obama.

While some Instagram posts were shared through Twitter, they didn't get quite the same engagement on their native platform.

Snapchat

Congresspeople were even sharing news and scenes from the sit-in on Snapchat, including Booker, Representative Eric Swalwell, Representative Beto O'Rourke and more.

Snapchat is the most intimate social network, and all of the Snapchat stories coming from Congresspeople on the floor made the whole event more personal. It's one thing to get the bird's-eye view from C-Span's cameras, and another entirely to feel like you're on the floor with them.

Content on Snapchat isn't as easily shareable as on Twitter and Facebook, but its audience is entirely different. Snapchat users tend to skew younger, so the Representatives sharing to that platform helped bring the sit-in to the attention of people who otherwise not know about it. Authenticity rules the day on Snapchat as well, and the Democrats righteous indignation (whether you agree with it or not) certainly plays well to its audience.

Ironically, the media blackout became the best catalyst for making the sit-in a social media hit. The inherent interactivity of social platforms means the demonstration became a conversation, as opposed to yet another political event happening way over in Washington, visible on TV but still removed from our lives. With social as the driver, it was in our apps, our phones, our "social graphs" — occupying the same space as our dinner plans and vacation photos. That probably wouldn't have happened if the cameras kept rolling.

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