If you're a Twitter user, you will have noticed a host of updates over the last number of days. These include changes to the 'replies' screen but also the death of the anonymous egg. 

The company announced on Friday is was removing the egg avatar, which serves as a default profile picture on the platform. In a post on their blog, the firm detailed their reasoning for this change.

"We’ve noticed patterns of behaviour with accounts that are created only to harass others – often they don’t take the time to personalise their accounts. This has created an association between the default egg profile photo and negative behaviour, which isn’t fair to people who are still new to Twitter and haven’t yet personalised their profile photo."

The company continued to say it hopes that the "empty state" of the new avatar will encourage users to upload images "that express themselves".

This is the new image:

While the new avatar may seem incredibly simple, the firm detailed the significant process that went into the selection of that image. 

"We explored gray, generic images to communicate that this profile photo is intended to be temporary. We looked at figures, photos, and patterns. After deciding on a figure, we began our refinements. We had to determine how to bring inclusivity into our single default profile photo, given that we don’t require people to specify their gender on Twitter."

The change is a small but significant one that will hopefully contribute to tackling the trolls on Twitter. Users can give their feedback to the company here. 

Rethinking our default profile photo. 🐣 https://t.co/5UjUltJwkf

— Twitter Design (@design) March 31, 2017