Twitter Drops the Egg, Default Avatar Gets Replaced
The egg is not all it was cracked up to be. At least Twitter must have thought as much.
On Friday, the social media company announced they have replaced their egg-shaped default profile icon with a generic, gray, floating head and body — which has already implemented on the platform (above).
The company gave a pretty complicated explanation as to why it made the swap. Here’s what you need to know:
Twitter cited their commitment to diversity and inclusion as a reason for the change — as well as their mission to tackle abuse that often takes place on Twitter.
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But here’s where it gets a tad confusing: The company said that the egg default icon grew to be a symbol associated with depersonalization and Twitter harassment, one that indicated “negative behavior, which isn’t fair to people who are still new to Twitter and haven’t yet personalized their profile photo.”
The new icon is meant to help users differentiate between trolls and more legit users in that their “new default image feels more like an empty state or placeholder, and we hope it encourages people to upload images that express themselves.”
Using a gray color scheme, the design team intentionally made the new default icon general and impersonal, to urge people to make an effort to update, and thus personalize their avatar. Twitter also made the icon gender inclusive.
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Of course, people were quick to react on Twitter itself, many criticizing the company for taking a passive approach to the harassment issue, and urging the company to more actively remove and monitor troll accounts.
In all fairness, Twitter has rolled out more anti-troll functions on their site in recent months, including more powerful muting functions.
Still, not everyone is satisfied:
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