Elon Musk’s willy-nilly approach to running Twitter was on full display yesterday after he declared that dark mode would become the only way to view the social media platform.
On Thursday, Musk tweeted about the upcoming change, claiming "It is better in every way." But about 15 hours later, he backtracked after numerous users pointed out a key problem with dark mode: It can be a terrible viewing experience for people with visual disabilities.
"To all the people saying 'oh dark mode is better anyways' some people literally need light mode for accessibility reasons. removing this feature is literally ableist,” wrote one user on Twitter.
Indeed, dark mode can make text harder to read for people with astigmatism, which can cause their vision to blur. The dark background and white text can exacerbate the effect, according to H Locke, a user interface designer who suffers from astigmatism.
It’s also an easy issue to solve: Why not give users the option to switch between the two? That's already the status quo for Twitter. Light mode is the default, but dark mode can be easily turned on by going into display settings for the app.
Facing these user complaints, Musk has decided to dial back his dark mode ambitions. In a follow-up tweet, he said: “A lot of people have asked to keep light mode, so we will, but the default will be dark and dim will be deleted.”
In a bit of irony, though, some users are begging Musk to keep the dim mode, which turns the background in the Twitter app to a dark blue instead of an opaque black. In the meantime, users should brace to see dark mode become default as Musk forces Twitter to rebrand into X.