Gone is the default pastel blue, and gone are all your custom wallpapers on public timelines as Twitter makes the bold decision to make everyone's web feed pages the same, uniform, plain white. The company admits they made the change but have made no explanation as to the reason behind it. Users began noticing the change on Monday, Wired freaked out about it immediately, and Twitter issued a statement about it Monday evening, saying,

We’re removing background images from the home and notifications timelines on web for all users. Now, background images are only available where logged-in users will see them publicly (Tweet pages, list pages and collections pages). You can find help center content about customizing your design and where it’s visible on Twitter here.

If you go to that Help Center page right now, however, there's actually no explanation about this, and it looks like it always did with the option to tile a custom image for your background. If you hit save, you'll see it briefly back on your home screen, and then it disappears the minute you refresh!

Needless to say, lots of people who have been used to looking at witty backgrounds of their choosing are pissed.

As Mashable notes, some users are referring to the new background as "blinding white," and they point to a tweet that compares the move to the waning days of Myspace.

The rationale, as the twitterer above surmises, could have to do with making home screens more ad-friendly, which would certainly make sense in light of all the noise that's been made recently about the company's disappointing financials.

There could also be something to do with policing pornographic or otherwise offensive imagery which also presents problems for advertisers.

This is what our homescreen used to look like:

And this is what happens if I try to reset it and then hit refresh:

Related: This Is Why I'm Not Retweeting You