{"id":337302,"date":"2017-04-01T01:12:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T17:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1471463"},"modified":"2017-04-01T01:12:50","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T17:12:50","slug":"twitter-is-getting-rid-of-the-egg-avatar-because-that-will-totally-fix-the-abuse-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/twitter-is-getting-rid-of-the-egg-avatar-because-that-will-totally-fix-the-abuse-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter is getting rid of the egg avatar because that will totally fix the abuse problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Everyone knows that\u00a0Twitter has a harassment problem<\/a>. And while the service has tried things like banning abusive users (both on a temporary<\/a> and permanent<\/a> basis) it hasn\u2019t really fixed the problem.<\/p>\n

But Twitter now thinks it has a real solution.\u00a0Cracking the egg.<\/p>\n

In a long-winded post<\/a> the service announced they are replacing the default egg with a unisex profile picture resembling a head and shoulders silhouette.<\/p>\n

Beginning in 2010 all new accounts started with their default profile picture\u00a0as an egg. Since then it has become a integral part of the Twitter brand. Everyone, even non-hardcore Twitter users, know the egg. Even CNN frequently features the egg when they\u00a0show tweets\u00a0from politicians and other celebrities<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Twitter gave a bunch of reasons<\/a> for\u00a0the switch. Some, like the fact that a more generic profile picture should\u00a0encourage new users to actually upload\u00a0a real profile picture of themselves, make sense.<\/p>\n

But Twitter also said that they were switching up default profile pictures in an effort to combat harassment. Specifically they think that since abusive accounts often have the egg as a profile picture, there is now \u201can association between the default egg profile photo and negative behavior\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gee, ya think?<\/p>\n

What Twitter isn\u2019t understanding is that abusive tweets sent from an egg account will now just be abusive tweets sent from a silhouette\u00a0account. Switching up the profile picture may be putting a bandaid on the\u00a0problem, but it does nothing to fix harassment\u00a0in the long run.<\/p>\n

A abusive\u00a0tweet is a abusive\u00a0tweet whether it\u2019s next to an egg, a silhouette or a real person\u2019s avatar.<\/p>\n

Plus,\u00a0as a byproduct Twitter\u00a0is killing off yet another part of Twitter\u2019s unique internal language and identity \u2013 just like they did with\u00a0@replies<\/a> and favorites<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t blame the egg, just fix the problem.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Everyone knows that\u00a0Twitter has a harassment problem. And while the service has tried things like banning abusive users (both on a temporary and permanent basis) it hasn’t really fixed the problem. But Twitter now thinks it has a real solution.\u00a0Cracking the egg. In a long-winded post the service announced they are replacing the default egg with a unisex profile picture resembling a… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-337302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}