Twitter's new feature now explains hashtags

Twitter rolled out a new feature on Friday that would explain commonly used hashtags. Searches for different hashtags will now display an explanation of the hashtag in addition to tweets associated with the hashtag.

Twitter rolled out a new feature on Friday that would explain commonly used hashtags.

Searches for different hashtags will now display an explanation of the hashtag in addition to tweets associated with the hashtag.

However, Twitter is giving explanations for only certain hashtags, such as #smh (shaking my head). No explanations are given for hashtags such as #ConfessionNight (used by people to tweet out their secret confessions), or #MH17 (the Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed in Ukraine last month), the Washington Post reported.

The hashtag feature is not available yet for desktop or mobile Android users, which suggests Twitter is still experimenting and may not necessarily roll it out for all users.

Twitter now has 271 million monthly active users, up 6.3 % from the 255 million regular users in the previous quarter. Mobile users make up 78 % of all active users.