Twitter will no longer automatically crop image previews on the web after rolling out full-size image previews on mobile earlier this year. On Twitter for the web, images will now display in full without any cropping. Instead of gambling on how an image will show up in the timeline, images will look just like they did when you shot them.
In the past, the platform automatically cropped images to make them display in a more condensed way in the timeline, where users often scroll through without clicking on an image preview. The social media giant first tested the change in March with a small subset of iOS and Android users, saying it wanted to give people an accurate preview of what an image will look like.
The tweet composer will now show anyone sharing an image a preview of what it will look like before it goes live in the timeline, resolving past concerns that Twitter’s algorithmic cropping was biased toward highlighting white faces. The automatic image cropping was also a hassle for photographers and artists, who generally prefer to have total control over how an image is displayed.
Although images will now likely take up more vertical space in users’ timelines on the web, it’s less of a hassle than having to manually click through images to be able to see them in their entirety.
This latest change comes as Twitter has been tweaking its platform and making its services more accessible. The social media giant recently rolled out the ability for users to share direct links to their Spaces to let others tune into a live audio session via the web without being logged into the platform. It also launched its premium subscription service, Twitter Blue, in the U.S. and New Zealand on Monday, following its initial rollout in Canada and Australia earlier this year.
