Twitter recently changed its web appearance and many users are not aware of it. The changes are indeed minor, only a new font seems to be launched to make it easier to spot fake or impersonator accounts.
The fonts used on the Twitter web are not completely replaced. According to Joshua Benton, writer from NiemanLab, Twitter still uses its own font called Chirp but with an OpenType style.
This new font makes it easier for users to distinguish characters that look the same. For example an uppercase 'I' and a lowercase 'L' that are similar in shape, or the number '0' and the letter 'o'.
With this new font, the uppercase 'I' will have a line across the top and bottom, while the lowercase 'L' will have a tail at the end. Meanwhile the number '0' now has a diagonal line down the middle.
This new font is only visible in Twitter usernames or handles. The changes are small, but at least it's easy for users to distinguish between the original account @elonmusk (with a lowercase 'L') and the fake account @eIonmusk (with a large 'I').
This change was also observed by author Molly White and you can see a sample of Twitter's new font in the tweet below. In his tweets on Twitter, White speculated that Twitter changed its font to make it easier for users to spot fake or impersonator accounts, as quoted from The Verge, Sunday (29/1/2023).
Not only White, netizens who were also aware of this change also expressed their confusion. Some of them are happy that they can avoid fake accounts more easily, but some are annoyed that their usernames look different.
This isn't the first time Twitter has changed the font used. The company owned by Elon Musk previously used the Segoe UI font which was replaced by the Chirp font in 2021.
Currently, Twitter's new font is only visible on the web and mobile. According to our monitoring, the Twitter application for iOS and Android still uses the old font.