Twitter just removed your homepage wallpaper, and people are furious - technology blog

Breaking

Tuesday 21 July 2015

Twitter just removed your homepage wallpaper, and people are furious

If Twitter.com is looking a little different right now, it's not just you.
The company has removed wallpapers from users' home and notifications timelines on Twitter.com Monday, Twitter confirmed Monday. Users now see a stark all-white background in place of their usual customized backgrounds, when viewing their profile, notifications and main timeline.
"We’re removing background images from the home and notifications timelines on web for all users," a Twitter spokesperson told MashableMonday. "Now, background images are only available where logged-in users will see them publicly (Tweet pages, list pages and collections pages). You can find help center content about customizing your design and where it’s visible on Twitter here."
Twitter's preset backgrounds or users' customized wallpapers are replaced with a solid white background that many are calling "blinding white." Previously, users were able to change the background image on their profile, which also showed up as their wallpaper elsewhere on Twitter's website.
Screen Shot 2015-07-20 at 2.14.12 PM

IMAGE: TWITTER
Needless to say, users are furious.

This new white-centric design isn't entirely new. The company appears to have started to remove backgrounds from new user profiles last year, when profiles were redesigned. The new "more fun" user profiles were introduced to new users first and slowly rolled out to more people. Twitter never commented specifically on the wallpaper of profiles, or when the update was available to all users, but screenshots from the update show new profiles, with the colorless backgrounds.
Though there's no way to change it back on your home feed or profile, your old Twitter background still appears in places here "logged-in users will see them publicly," the company says. Backgrounds still appear behind individual tweets, on topic-based collection pages and lists.
Twitter tweets

IMAGE: TWITTER
You can change the background image settings for these areas of Twitter from the website's main settings menu under the "Design" tab in the left column. There, you'll find the site's pre-made background images and the tools to upload your own photos.
Updated at 5:50 p.m. PT with context on Twitter's last redesign of user profiles.
Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

No comments:

Post a Comment