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Twitter says Topics will make it easy to follow what you're actually interested in

The Topics feature launches this week.

Erin Carson Former Senior Writer
Erin Carson covered internet culture, online dating and the weird ways tech and science are changing your life.
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  • She has a master's degree in journalism from Syracuse University.
Erin Carson
2 min read
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Twitter is getting topical. 

Angela Lang/CNET

Twitter is rolling out a new feature for following specific topics. In a blog post Monday, Twitter said the Topics feature in the coming months will start making suggestions in your timeline and in search based on what you already follow. You'll be able to follow a topic with one tap.

The feature, which was earlier reported by The Verge, will reportedly let people follow more than 300 areas of interest across subjects like sports and entertainment, similar to how they follow individual Twitter accounts. 

Twitter is promising that the Topics tweets you'll see in your timeline will come from accounts with credibility. It'll check whether an account normally tweets about the topic, and what kind of engagement a tweet is getting from other people who also tweet about the topic. 

"When you choose to follow a topic – whether it's your favorite band, sports team or celebrity – you'll see Tweets from a whole host of accounts that are experts, fans or just tend to talk about that thing a lot on Twitter," the company said in its blog post. 

One topic that reportedly won't be included in the first batch: politics. Twitter last week said it'll stop selling ads concerning candidates for office, elections or political issues such as the climate crisis and immigration. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey argued that the reach of political messages "should be earned" by getting people to follow an account or share a tweet instead of "bought" through advertising.

Twitter this year has been focused on new features aimed at making it easier for users to find what they're looking for and to control their experiences on the social network. In September, Twitter began allowing people in the US and Japan to hide replies as part of an experiment to fuel more-positive conversations.

Watch this: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter: What's your relationship with them like?

Originally published Nov. 6, 9:45 a.m. PT.
Update, 10:32 a.m.: Adds more background; Nov. 7: Adds additional background; Nov. 12: Adds additional information from Twitter.