X
2012

Twitter Outlawed Animated GIF Avatars In Profile Pics

September 21, 2012 0

Los Angeles – Amid all the horrific changes and new policies Twitter has implemented in the past six months, one of the few saving graces is that it never prohibited the ability to upload animated GIFs for use as avatars. But now, some Twitter users are expressing major disbelief–after discovering the social network no longer allows them to upload animated GIFs as their personal avatars.

Previously, users had been forced to employ alternative method to post animated avatars because of Twitter’s profile photo policy. Those tactics appear to have stopped working.

According to Buzzfeed FWD reports, Twitter has claimed it would implement the policy sooner or later, and now that policy has finally been enforced. Try and upload one, and you will be denied. If you currently have an Animated GIF avatar, however, Twitter would not touch it. But if you change it, you lose it forever.

Admittedly, Twitter itself did not like them either, and according to BuzzFeed, you can no longer use an animated GIF as an avatar on the service. RIP, weird flashing things.

This is what BuzzFeed shared on the matter:

My avatar still moves. New uploads, however, do not. The animated GIF avatar is not quite dead, but it appears to have been sentenced to death.

Besides, this was a long time coming. Animated GIFs do not display in most Twitter apps, including the official clients for iPhone, Android, and Mac OS. They do display in Tweetdeck and on Twitter’s website, but they have been officially unsupported for years, according to Twitter’s support pages.

According to Chris Torres, the illustrator who introduced Nyan Cat to the masses in 2011 and now has a Twitter account with an animated avatar of the meme (see below), experimented fruitlessly Thursday after hearing the news.

“Oh wow, I just tried to upload an animated avatar on an unused alt account and it did not animate,” Torres informed Mashable. “That is scary! But it is also cool knowing we are part of an exclusive animated GIF club.”

On the other hand, people presently having animated avatars would not be affected by the GIF freeze-out, according to Twitter’s Help Center, which details the company’s policy against animated avatars:

We asked Twitter whether the policy became stricter on Thursday or if that is just when people began to take notice, and we are still waiting for a response.

“I have never really seen the big deal on why people look down on those who have animated avatars,” says Torres, who thinks Twitter clamped down on GIFs because people were uploading GIFs several megabytes large (Twitter requires avatar photos, 700 KB or smaller in size).

Here is Torres’s account that employs an animated avatar:

Some other Twitter users are losing their damn minds as well: