Twitter custom backgrounds removed, forcing users to stare at blinding white wallpaper

Change has been criticised by people including the voice of Mr Burns

A Malaysian girl logs in to her twitter account in Kuala Lumpur on October 31, 2010

Twitter has got rid of custom wallpapers and colours for its timeline, forcing people to look at a blinding white wallpaper instead and provoking the wrath of users.

Before, the Twitter website let people choose a custom background or image that would show when people looked at their own timeline, as well as when others looked at a person’s profile. But that has now been removed, and replaced with just a default white screen.

The change doesn’t seem to be entirely coherent. There is still an option to add a background or change the colour, and it will show up. But after clicking around the site a little, the background or colour will disappear again.

Twitter has confirmed the change — and parts of its website have been updated to reflect it — but it hasn’t yet said why it has happened.

“We’re removing background images from the home and notifications timelines on web for all users,” a Twitter spokesperson told Techcrunch. “Now, background images are only available where logged-in users will see them publicly (Tweet pages, list pages and collections pages).”

The change drew criticism from Twitter users including Harry Shearer, famous for being the voice of Principal Skinner and Mr Burns on The Simpsons, as well as other roles.

As well as the look, some have claimed that Twitter likely made the change so that it could give up the space to ads.

“One of the possibilities, and something I’ve heard, is that Twitter wants more control of their ad display experience,” wrote Drew Olanoff at Techcrunch. “For example, if the company were to want to sell a full-homepage-takeover-background-ad that you see on a lot of sites, they couldn’t.”