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This is wild to me, as my rule of thumb is the exact opposite! I assume anybody whose profile picture isn't themselves is either a bot, a troll, or a throwaway account they use for comments they know will be controversial. It's the equivalent of having a username like "@John448172312". (Not that you should really trust either group to argue anything in good faith on Twitter).

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There's a lot of nuance, but my rule of thumb isn't so far off from the comment's above you.

My Twitter avatar is a picture of a fractal I generated with my own software. That reveals (fuzzily) a certain non-obvious aspect of my personality, which you couldn't get just from looking at my face. The majority of people have faces; mine isn't much of a signal to strangers.

Faces are for recognition. If we met at a conference, you could recognize me again by my face. If you don't know me, my face isn't very useful unless you expect to meet me in person. So, a face on Twitter is unhelpful to the point of being counterproductive.

Anyway, that face might not even be theirs.

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