Twitter’s latest unexpected change is square profile pictures for brands

Twitter adds to its increasingly complex ways of differentiating accounts with new square profile pictures with rounded corners for brands. The new type of profile picture rolled out on the platform on Monday, and you may already be able to see them on brand profiles and in your feed.

This is what The edgeFor example, the new square profile picture looks like this:

And here it is in the feed:

It seems these square profile pictures are applied to accounts with gold verification badges, what already denote official business accounts. Totustuuss for example, official deals and transport-oriented accounts have blue badges and still have round profile pictures.

I should also note that the square profile pictures are actually the third possible option. Most accounts have the default circle, brands now have squares, and Twitter Blue subscribers with NFT profile pictures can have hexagons.

But square profile pictures aren’t the only new identification tool Twitter is rolling out. It also introduces a new, smaller box that sits next to a check mark on a profile and appears to show one account’s connection to another. (We’re approaching Tumblr-level ridiculousness here.)

I’ve seen examples of this myself on three accounts: @TwitterSupportas shown in the screenshot at the top of this post, the official Twitter Verified accountand @TwitterBlue. Hovering over the miniaturized profile picture doesn’t currently show any indication of what it is, unlike verification badges, which do). In the case of the Support, Verified, and Blue accounts, clicking the small box will take you to the main Twitter account.