We've all probably taken a peek at the Trending section of Twitter and asked why a certain topic is trending before either putting the thought out of our mind or tweeting "why is this trending?" Well, the company doesn't seem to want to stand for that kind of ignorance, so it will start explaining why a subject is getting all the buzz right in that panel.

These explanations could take the form of a pinned tweet affixed below the trending topic or a short description written by a human (not the algorithm) of what's going on. Tapping on the topic will bring you to the usual expanded summary of tweets or what we used to call Moments.

Explainers will appear across the mobile apps and on desktop and arrive over the next few weeks in the following countries:

  • Argentina
  • Australia
  • Brazil
  • Canada
  • Colombia
  • Egypt
  • France
  • India
  • Ireland
  • Japan
  • Mexico
  • New Zealand
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Spain
  • United Kingdom
  • United Arab Emirates
  • United States

Twitter notes that over 500,000 tweets were made last year asking why a certain topic at any given moment was trending.

Source: Twitter