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Twitter just made a change to the way it displays images, a move that now has visual artists celebrating on the site.
The social network rolled out a limited test of uncropped, larger images in users’ feed in March. Now, the company has declared those tests a success and improved the image sharing experience for everybody.
no bird too tall, no crop too short
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introducing bigger and better images on iOS and Android, now available to everyone pic.twitter.com/2buHfhfRAx
— Twitter (@Twitter) May 5, 2021
Those pictures uploaded are also meant to be clearer, given Twitter’s recent update to 4K images. After all, why would we get to see more art that’s not of fine quality?
TWITTER FIXED CROPPING ??? pic.twitter.com/6AZx8MX3is
— Safwan AhmedMia (@SuperSaf) May 5, 2021
On Android and iOS, standard aspect ratio images (16:9 and 4:3) will now display in full without any cropping. The new system will show anyone sharing an image a preview of what it will look like before it goes live in the timeline. This is meant to resolve past concerns that Twitter’s algorithmic cropping was biased toward highlighting white faces.
“Today’s launch is a direct result of the feedback people shared with us last year that the way our algorithm cropped images wasn’t equitable,” Twitter spokesperson Lauren Alexander said.
Unfortunately, super tall or wide images will still get a centred crop. However, Twitter has promised to improve that alongside other aspects of how visual media gets displayed in the timeline.
Of course, this means that the “open for surprise” memes are pretty much gone. But many would be happy to give that away to avoid the sometimes wildly embarrassing crops that used to plague the platform.
But if you still want to see those memes, it seems like the web version of Twitter on desktop still hasn’t made the changes.
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