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Twitter drops egg to combat Internet trolls

Twitter has scrapped the iconic egg it uses for profiles without any images.

The strategy is to combat Internet trolls that these Twitter eggs have become synonymous with. Over the past seven years, accounts registered without a profile picture showed a default egg as a sign of eggs hatching into birds, which is the icon of the Twitter logo.

Talking about this, Twitter said, “This was a playful way to reference how eggs hatch into birds that send all the Tweets you see on Twitter! We’ve noticed patterns of behavior with accounts that are created only to harass others — often they don?t take the time to personalize their accounts. This has created an association between the default egg profile photo and negative behavior.”

The new icon that will appear in place of the egg will be a silhouette of a person, which hopefully will encourage users to upload their personal pictures to replace it. “The new default image feels more like an empty state or placeholder, and we hope it encourages people to upload images that express themselves,” Twitter said.