Twitter’s latest innovation affects the way images are cropped, and vertical images have been the big beneficiaries.
If you’ve just logged into Twitter, you may have noticed that people you follow have suddenly decided to post a lot of images; not only that, but the only thing they have in common is their vertical format.
And then you may have noticed that you no longer need to click on the image to see it in full. That has always been one of the big annoyances of using Twitter, especially if we follow photographers or artists. Normally, Twitter crops images and centers them, an algorithm that has caused no small amount of controversy; for example, when it was revealed that Twitter’s code was ‘racist’.
The problem is that Twitter didn’t want to take up too much space so that we wouldn’t have to constantly ‘scroll’; but nowadays, when most people use Twitter on vertical screens like mobile, it’s not such a big problem.
Finally, and although the possibility of including a complete editor was rumored, Twitter has finally decided to allow tweets with vertical images. The change began to be tested last March, and the results have been convincing; now, they reach everyone. Therefore, this feature will not require the new paid Twitter subscription.
Twitter confirmed today that this change comes as a direct consequence of the controversy with cropped photos, which favored white people over black people even if they occupied the same space in the image; it was an unintended consequence of an algorithm that gave priority to areas with lower contrast.
https://twitter.com/naletss/status/1390082844651884546
With the change, Twitter finally becomes an acceptable way to share photos and art. We no longer have to click on the image to see it in full: at a glance, we can see most of the image, and even the entire image; if we want to enlarge it and see the details, we can keep clicking on it.
Specifically, from now on images with aspect ratios 2:1 and 3:4 will be shown in full, while the rest can still be cropped, but trying to keep the original ratio.
The news has been received with joy on the social network. Many artists are taking advantage of it to republish their creations, which were previously crudely cropped and can now be shown in all their splendor.
https://twitter.com/foxville_art/status/1390086394094161921
That’s not the only change they can be thankful for. Today Twitter also confirmed that it has expanded the functionality that warns us if we are being rude or harmful in our messages. If we put insults or offensive terms in our tweet, the app will warn us and allow us to edit it before sending it; or we can ignore the warning and publish the message as is.
In tests, Twitter claims that 34% of users revised the message, or decided not to send it, after seeing the warning; and it has also noticed an 11% reduction in the number of offensive replies after seeing a warning. This feature will now come to iOS app users in English.
