Twitter adds a button for sharing tweets via direct messages

Twitter is adding a button to tweets on Android and iOS today that lets you share them to a person or group using direct messages. Until now, if you wanted share a DM, you had to long-press on the tweet or click the ellipsis icon and then choose “share via direct message.” Now you can click the envelope icon that appears underneath a tweet, to the right of the heart, and select the person or group you’d like to send it to. From there, you can add a comment or just hit send.

The new feature is similar to one that Pinterest launched when it released its own messaging function in 2014. At the time, Pinterest talked up its ability to create “conversations around an object,” and I imagine Twitter thinks of its DMs the same way. How might you use such a feature? In a promotional GIF, Twitter suggests sending DMs to plan a camping trip, which is something that has probably never happened in the history of Twitter. You’re more likely to use it to help you talk trash about something stupid that someone tweeted, sharing it with someone else who also has to follow that person for social reasons. “Can you believe this clown,” you’ll probably say, via DM, and then hope the other person doesn’t screenshot it.

The number of DMs grew 60 percent in 2015, Twitter said, because people love to talk trash about each other. The company did not disclose the total number of messages sent, because it’s way less than Facebook.