Twitter has ditched the egg , abandoning the bird motif for a more generic option .
On Friday , Twitterintroduced a newfangled default profile video , switching from the well - known orchis to a simple human silhouette . Twitter hopes this alteration will encourage users to exchange the default epitome with a real photo of themselves , deter people from remaining anonymous orbeing associated with trolls .
The eggs has been Twitter ’s nonremittal profile picture for seven years , but recently it has direct on a new meaning beyond the cute bird motif . Obviously , Twitter round , bots and others who utilise the site entirely for revilement and harassment choose to stay anonymous , so the testis photo has become a signifier for this case of drug user . As playwrightKen Armstrong put it , “ Never argue with an egg . ”
Twitter is not oblivious to this unfortunate connection . Here ’s what the society cited as one of the reasons for ditching the egg :
“ We ’ve remark blueprint of conduct with account that are created only to provoke others — often they do n’t take the time to individualise their accounts . This has created an association between the default egg profile photo and damaging behavior , which is n’t fair to citizenry who are still fresh to Twitter and have n’t yet personalized their visibility photo . ”
moreover , the fact that the egg has basically been adopted by bad musician on the political program was also harmful to Twitter users who wanted to stay anonymous for benevolent understanding .
“ These regular user would be using a troll ’s wear in some agency , not realizing that they believably should be changing that , ” Twitter ’s senior managing director of intersection design Bryan Haggerty toldFast Company .
Twitter ’s new default incarnation is a nondescript human silhouette . The society chose it because it found it to be everything a profile proxy should be : generic , universal , serious , unbranded , irregular , and inclusive .
Why this count : Twitter getting rid of the egg incarnation is more than just a innovation selection . Recently , the fellowship has been aggressively trying to curb the case of troll , abuse , and torment that have become somewhat synonymous with the Robert William Service . One of the most meaning changes was Twitter give users the power to hide tweets institutionalise to them by people with the nonpayment visibility picture . Getting rid of the eggs completely seems to be Twitter ’s fashion of using design to address that .
