Twitter will be rolling out a new Topics function over the next few months. The function will allow users to follow topics of interest. Topic suggestions based on what users search for and follow will appear in users’ timelines and searches.
Topics can be followed with a single click. Tweets from a host of ‘credible’ accounts will be surfaced into the user’s timeline. Over 300 topics can be followed. Politics, however, is not a topic that will be featured in the initial batch of Topics.
“The idea of letting people follow topics in addition to (or instead of) individual accounts dates back to the earliest days of the company. But it took the development of machine learning tools and the hiring of a human editorial team, among other things, to make it happen.”
Casey Newton, writing in The Verge
Twitter plans to roll out more topics in the future and is working on a feature that allows Topics to be muted.
Sources: Twitter. Casey Newton's article describing his experience with the Topics function.