Here's something you probably didn't know about Facebook and Instagram. Images uploaded to the services are automatically creating ASCII art versions of those photos.

The nifty trick was first discovered by Mathias Bynens on Twitter. It's unclear exactly why Facebook is doing this but it's neat nevertheless.

To give it a try yourself, simply locate the URL of an image on Facebook or Instagram. Copy the URL, open a new browser window and past the URL in the address bar. Then, simply add .html to the end of the image URL to get a color ASCII version or .txt for a black and white variant.

Do note that the image must be public. My experience, at least with Facebook images, is that it only works with URLs that end in .jpg. If there are any additional characters after .jpg then it won't work, even if you delete the extra characters first. It's also a bit harder to find URLs on Instagram as you can't simply right-click to get the code. In Chrome, for example, you'll need to right-click then click Inspect and hunt down the URL code ending with .jpg.

Have you had any luck with the ASCII art? Why do you think Facebook is even doing this to images? Chime in with your thoughts in the comments section below.