How to Remove What’s Happening from Twitter

Twitter's "What's Happening" section is an element that appears on desktops and widescreen devices that use a browser. The section came as an upgrade to the "Trending" or "Trends" element the service used for years and showed hashtags that were trending in the local area. "What's Happening" though is far different from "Trends" showing trending topics, hashtags, and stories selected by Twitter. These are shown based on either places you've been (not just your current geographic location), topics you have shown an interest in, or both. The net result is often a collection of salacious click-bait style content that can be incredibly distracting if not completely unrelated to your current mood or circumstance. Users might often lose track of what they were thinking about, go down rabbit holes, or completely wreck their work efficiency / mental health by obsessively reviewing this section of Twitter. Of course, that all helps Twitter make more money by driving higher advertising impressions across their network. As you might expect Twitter doesn't give you any way to remove this element from your viewing experience using their tools and the tools they provide to help customize your experience on Twitter either do not apply to the "What's Happening" section or are cumbersome to use. For example any words you've added to the Muted Words feature under "Privacy and Safety" do not apply to the "What's Happening" section.

How to Remove the What's Happening Section from Twitter on Desktop

1. Download Ultimasaurus from the Chrome Web Store. This browser extension will allow you to completely remove the entire section without dealing with the headaches of trying to personalize it. 2. Once installed make sure to 'pin' the extension to your browser's toolbar. You need to have Ultimasaurus pinned in your browser to access the options to customize your web experience. If you are not sure how to do this, this article walks you through it: https://www.chromestory.com/2019/05/pinned-extensions/ 3. Now click on the Ultimasaurus icon and click the on/off toggle switch next to "Remove Twitter's "What's Happening" Section" so that it moves to the 'on' position. It should look like this when you are done. 4. Click the "Save" button. If you do not save your settings the extension will not remove this from your view. 5. Go to Twitter.com, login and you should see the "What's Happening" section fully removed. If you are already logged in simply refresh your browser window.

How to Customize the Content That Appears in Twitter's What's Happening Section

If you can't remove the section, the next best thing is to customize it. Unfortunately, most if not all of the work you do in this section is manual and can be undone by Twitter at any time. For best performance we recommend using the Ultimasaurus extension and simply removing it all together. 1. Click on the "More" icon at bottom of the left-hand navigation. 2. Select "Settings and Privacy" 3. Select "Prviacy and Safety" 4. Go to the "Content You See" section on the right-hand side. 5. Select "Topics" on the right-hand side. 6. Unfollow any topics you do not want to see in Twitter's What's Happening section. 7. Click on the "Suggested" tab at the top. 8. Select any topics here that you want to see in Twitter's What's Happening section. 9. Click the back arrow at the very top of the screen (not the browser's back button). 10. Select "Interests" on the right-hand side. 11. Uncheck any of these you do not want to see in your What's Happening section. Twitter will likely encourage you to add new Topics over time (or might someday automatically do this) and they will absolutely opt you back into Interests automatically over time. If you find the "What's Happening" section is bothering you, the best way to alleviate this is to use Ultimasaurus.

Twitter is a USA-based company and as such it tends to have a heavy political slant towards U.S. politics. Before it was purchased by Elon Musk this slant was heavily towards what Americans call "the Left" or "the Liberals" or "the Democrat Party". This was ultimately unveiled in what the press are refering to as 'The Twitter Files' a selection of emails and Slack communications from within the company that show employees and high-ranking executives used their power to push political and social justice agendas that always aligned to this political party and their politicians. The other political party in the USA is often referred to as "the Right" or "the Conservatives" or "the Republican Party". Since Twitter was based in a so called Blue state in the middle of a Blue stronghold (i.e. 'Blue' here represents the Democrat party and all of their ideals) it is safe to say that none of what Conservatives valued were pushed or favored by the staff at Twitter abusing their power. These two facts alone were, and currently still are, enough to ignite fierce vitriolic arguments on the platform. With human users, pseudononymous accounts, and bot accounts alike attacking each other in support of whichever party / ideology they support. No matter which party you might align with or root for, as someone new to the USA, as an American tired of the screaming matches, or as someone using the Twitter service outside of the USA - you might grow tired of the screaming matches these political conversations bring up. This guide is designed to help you opt-out of the political agendas and conversations happening on Twitter right now and will be continually updated over time. Step 1: Mute Frequently Used Words Twitter introduced the "Mute" function in 2014 as a permanent part of the services feature set on both desktop and mobile apps. On Desktop you can find this by going to "More" -> "Settings and Support" -> "Settings and Privacy" -> "Privacy and Safety" -> "Mute and Block" -> "Muted Words". On the mobile apps (iOS and Android) this is in the same location but you start by tapping on your profile photo/logo in the upper lefthand corner the -> "Settings and Support" -> "Settings and Privacy" -> "Privacy and Safety" -> "Mute and Block" -> "Muted Words". Here you can mute one word or phrase at a time. You should always select options to mute the keywords from your home timeline, notifications, and from anyone who posts them. Here is what those options look like on desktop: To remove and keep American political drama out of your feed and view we recommend muting these words:

trump
biden
kamala
aoc
republican party
democrat party
gop
democrats
libtard
right-wing
racist
lgbt
lgbtqia
nike
racism
gender fluid
trans
moveon
protesting
allyship
kanye
non binary
pride month
protesters
protestors
police
george floyd

Step 2: Remove the "What's Happening" Section from Desktop / Laptop Browsers While the new ownership of Twitter appears keen on ripping out the old infrastructure which appears to have been built as a vehicle to transmit American political news to the masses, for now it is still there. If you use Twitter on a desktop computer this can be extremely distracting and annoying - even if you are really into politics or work in a politically-adjacent field. That's because the "What's Happening" section in the sidebar is an always updating list of trending topics and news articles designed to keep you engaged with the platform at all times. It is also immune to the "mute" function so topics you have muted are likely to appear here. The best way to keep American politics and other junk from getting into your view via this vector is to remove it completely. To do that install the Ultimasaurus browser extension from the Chrome web store. Then pin the extension to your toolbar. You can do this by clicking the 3 vertical dots in the upper-righthand corner -> selecting "More Tools" -> then selecting "Extensions" Now find the Ultimasaurus extension in your list of extensions and toggle the switch to pin it to your toolbar. The toggle should appear to be turned off (gray) and after being toggled on should appear blue in color. You should now see the Ultimasaurus icon (the polygon dinosaur footprint) appear next to the URL bar at the top of your browser window. Left click this icon to bring up the extension's options and click the toggle switch to turn the option to remove the "What's Happening" section from Off to On. ('on' here means that the section will be removed, 'off' means it will appear). Step 3: (Optional) Mute American Political Accounts Another way to remove USA politics from your Twitter usage is to mute the accounts of major American politicians. American politics adopted Twitter pretty well and once elected American officials often gain access to a Twitter handle for that specific office and then also operate their independent account as well. In some cases a specific politician and/or their team of assistants might operate numerous Twitter accounts including their official government office account, the account representing their branch of government, their personal account, accounts representing their business or non-profit, accounts representing their party, and accounts representing any political action groups they are the head of. This means a lot of muting and there is really no way we can list them all here. It's best to mute these accounts when you see them come across your feed. You can mute an account from their tweet, retweet, reply to someone else's tweet, or by visiting their profile and muting them from the account-level options or by selecting a tweet and muting them from there.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Does muting block content from my searches / explore feed? Answer: No. Muting only impacts tweets that enter your view via your feed or when you are reading a thread of tweets. It does not appear to apply to Twitter's Explore, What's Happening, Search, or Who to Follow recommendations. Question: Is there any way to keep American political content out of my search or Explore on Twitter? Answer: No. Unfortunately, right now there are no ways to remove this content. We are examining possible ways to do this with future versions of the Ultimasaurus extension.

Google's AI Overviews were panned for being hilariously inaccurate at launch. Now Google has spent time trying to fix them these are more accurate but still suffer the same issues other AI tools do: A lack of properly citing sources and a lack being able to give a web user the full information they are seeking. To many, especially independent creators, AI Overviews are just high-tech content theft via a sophisticated 'spinning' system. Google once penalized article spinners and websites that hosted them like Ezine Articles now to these users Google is the article spinner. If you want to remove Google's AI Overviews it is actually really simple, fast, and free to do. Just follow these steps: 1. On a desktop or laptop computer with the Chrome browser installed go to Ultimasaurus.com and click "Install Now". 2. This will take you to the Chrome Webstore page for our extension Ultimasaurus. Once here click the button that says "Add to Chrome" 3. Unfortunately, Google doesn't allow many extensions to work just because you added them to your browser. You need to click the puzzle piece looking icon to the right of your URL bar at the top righ-hand side of your browser, this will allow you to manage extensions you have installed. 4. Now click on the pin icon next to the Ultimasaurus (red dinosaur footprint) icon, it should turn blue. 5. Once you do this the Ultimasaurus icon should appear just to the left of the puzzle piece icon. Click on it to bring up the menu of options which should all or mostly be toggled to "off". 6. Click the toggle switch to the left of the option "Remove "AI Overviews" in Google Search" on the "Search" tab. 7. Click the Save or Save & Refresh buttons and voila, you no longer have to worry about AI Overviews on Google.