Twitter now lets you follow Tamil topics like Rajinikanth, AR Rahman, Chennai Super Kings

Image: Reuters

Twitter on July 20 announced that it is rolling out Tamil Topics to make it easier for users to find relevant and interesting conversations on its platform across literature, music, and poetry among others.

The feature has been rolled out to all Twitter users on its Android, iOS and web apps who have set Tamil as their primary language on Twitter. Users can choose and personalise the content they see on their home timeline by choosing to follow specific subjects such as artists like Vijay, Rajinikanth, A R Rahman or sports teams like Chennai Super Kings.

On following a topic, they will see tweets from a range of accounts. Twitter said it will also recommend content related to or similar to interests, celebrities or teams they follow, including entertainment and sports news.

The launch comes nearly two years after Twitter introduced Topics feature in India in Hindi and English in October 2020. Tamil is the third most used language on the service in India.

The social media firm said this launch is part of its commitment to "building for India and its diverse audiences". Twitter had previously piloted a dedicated cricket tab on its Android app in the nation along with extending its Communities feature to the country with the debut of a cricket-focused community.

"Over the years, Twitter has broadened the scope and scale of real-time conversation and connection by providing greater possibilities for intimate and authentic interactions through features such as Spaces," said Cheryl-Ann Couto, head of partners at Twitter India.

"With Topics and #OnlyOnTwitter activations in Tamil ... we are bringing relevant and exclusive content to people respectively and trying to help them connect directly with the things that they care about as well as with one another," she added.

First introduced in 2019, Twitter said the feature currently offers more than 15,000 topics across 13 languages including Hindi and Tamil and around 280 million accounts follow at least one Twitter topic.

This launch, however, comes at a time when it is sparring with Tesla CEO Elon Musk over the company's proposed $44 million takeover bid.