Skip to main content

Facebook wants to make it easier for you to support causes

Facebook Hack
Shutterstock / Bloomua
Many of us like to use our Facebook profile or cover pictures to support a worthy cause once in a while. The most recent one you might have seen was for gay marriage, which prompted a wave of rainbow-colored profile pictures in support of new legislation. It turns out Mark Zuckerberg and his team are actually pretty fond of this idea, and want to make it easier to manage.

As TechCrunch reports, the giant social network is testing out a feature that allows users to change their profile picture on a temporary basis — after a set amount of time, it reverts back to normal. It’s not a massive change in the way the site works but it does mean you won’t still be supporting a presidential nominee long after he or she has withdrawn from the race.

Recommended Videos

Apparently only a limited number of people have access to the feature right now, but it’s slated for a broader roll-out in the near future. It lets you choose a set number of hours, days, or weeks before your old selfie returns at the top of your Timeline page, and should make the process of throwing your digital weight behind a cause that little bit easier.

“We often see people use their profile pictures to support a cause, root for a team, and commemorate milestones like birthdays and anniversaries,” Facebook told TechCrunch in an email. “Today, we’re testing a new feature that allows you to set a temporary profile picture for a specified period of time. Temporary profile pictures make it easier to to express who you are and how you’re feeling at a given moment, without having to worry about changing your profile picture back later.”

When the picture switches back, the change isn’t shown on the News Feed, so it should also cut down the Facebook update clutter that normally appears whenever a particular movement, sports game or Internet meme winds down.

[Image courtesy of Bloomua/Shutterstock.com]

David Nield
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…
Staying on Twitter? Here are two ways to make it easier
Twitter app on the OnePlus 10T.

Yes, it's true: Elon Musk has officially taken the reins at Twitter. And as expected, there are quite a few people who aren't happy about the news, as they have voiced their concerns that a Musk-helmed Twitter could be more susceptible to more of the toxicity and abuse that the bird app already struggles with. Deleting your Twitter account is certainly a viable option that many are considering -- and hey, more power to you ifthat's what you decide.

But here are two things you can do to make the days ahead a bit more bearable without having to resort to muting a bunch of words or leaving Twitter altogether.
Get away from the main timeline
When you're scrolling through endless tweets on your timeline, it's easy to think that that's all there is to Twitter. And that's actually not true. At least not as of recently. Twitter has other ways of sharing and consuming content that isn't about just having to put up with whatever you see in your main timeline. And these other ways are actually whole sections of the bird app that are separate from the main timeline, giving you a break from others'  rants or mean tweets or arguments.
Twitter Communities

Read more
Having trouble accessing your Instagram account? You’re not alone
Instagram being used on an iPhone.

Instagram appears to be down right now, but the glitch many users are reporting is an odd one. It's not just that users are having trouble accessing the popular photo- and video-sharing app, but they're also having trouble accessing their own accounts and have reported being hit with account suspension notices.

On Monday morning, the apparent Instagram outage was reported by users on Twitter and on Downdetector. Both sites included numerous reports saying that users suddenly lost access to their IG accounts and were given account suspension notices.

Read more
YouTube is rolling out handles. Here’s what you need to know
The red and white YouTube logo on a phone screen. The phone is on a white background.

YouTube recently announced that it would be rolling out handles for YouTube channels. Whether you've just heard about them or you already got an email from YouTube saying it's time to choose one, you're probably wondering what they are and how they're different from YouTube channel names.

In this guide, we'll go over what a YouTube handle is and answer a few questions about them so you can better understand what they are and be better prepared to choose one when it's rolled out to you.

Read more