How to navigate the confusing world of Twitter Topics
Just make a tab for it
Browsing Topics
In your current timeline,Twitterwill show you tweets based on the topics that you’ve followed, along with tweets from people you’re following.
Once in a while, it might also throw in tweets related to subjects you might be interested in.
You can see what a sample of a topic-related tweet looks like in the screengrab below:
If you click on a topic title, you’ll see all tweets related to that. The caveat is that it’s a list curated by Twitter, and there’s no way to sort it. Bummer.
Following topics is useful to get updates related to a subject without following a ton of new accounts. I like to use it to find interesting facts or learn about a new industry — like web3 and blockchain — I might report on.
Managing Topics
To follow a topic, when a tweet with a topic label appears on your timeline, click onSee more, and then hit theFollowbutton.
If you want to see what topics you follow and filter the list, here’s how you can do it:
That brings us to the third section:Not interested, which is a tricky one. Topics will only appear in this part when you see a topic on your timeline and click on the X button to indicate you’re not interested. Alternatively, you can click on the three-dot menu, and then selectNot interested.
You can go back and follow that topic through the settings mentioned above if you accidentally ignore it.
This is a bit confusing because you can’t move a topic fromFollowingtoNot Interested. You can only do it when you’ve unfollowed it, and if a tweet related to it appears on your timeline.
Notably, there’s a difference between unfollowing a topic and moving it to theNot interestedsection. With the former, you might still see some tweets related to the subject, with the latter, you won’t see any of them. And you thought understanding NFTs is tough.
What about ‘Interests’?
When you visit the content settings menu mentioned above, you’ll also see anIntereststab next to Topics.
It’s an automatically curated list of things Twitter thinks you’re interested in. The company said this is to personalize your experience on the bird site to show you “suggested topics and recommended Tweets.” Plus, the company uses this list to show you targeted ads.
You can deselect for the topics that are irrelevant to you. But since this is an automatically generated list, you have to periodically check it and untick all weird interests. This sucks, and Twitter’s not making it easy.
It’s worth visiting this list once every six months, but it’s not an essential setting you need to worry about. Don’t let the algorithm win.
Make things simpler, please
Despite being out for more than two years, Topics feels like a beta feature. There’s so much complexity involved, and it doesn’t even identifycats and dogs correctly.
Topics are useful to show you tweets out of your regular timeline you might be interested in. But if you feel that it’s making your feed more cluttered, you can spend some time refining your settings. I really wish the company just created a dedicated Topic tab, so it’s easier to manage them.
Story byIvan Mehta
Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That’s one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say “Bleh.“Ivan covers Big Tech, India, policy, AI, security, platforms, and apps for TNW. That’s one heck of a mixed bag. He likes to say “Bleh.”
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