Twitter now makes it easier to share tweets privately through Direct Messages

Twitter has streamlined the process by which you can share a tweet through a Direct Message. Starting today, on iOS and Android, you’ll see a new message button within a tweet (next to the “like” button). When you tap on it, you can share the tweet with anyone you’re connected to.

Sharing tweets via Direct Message isn’t a new functionality — in fact, it’s been around for a while. The difference is that now it doesn’t require as much work. Twitter said that the number of tweets shared privately has grown by 200 percent in just the second half of 2015, though specific numbers weren’t revealed.

Twitter has been tweaking its Direct Messages feature for some time. In the past year, Direct Messages have become longer, started to support photos and videos, and can now be used to provide customer feedback to businesses. Some have even questioned whether the feature should be spun out into its own standalone app, similar to Facebook Messenger. If so, could we start to see Twitter-supporting bots like Slack, Facebook, Kik, and others? Twitter has apparently mulled that option over, but it seems that wasn’t the road the company wanted to go down at this time.

This update is only available on Twitter’s iOS and Android app, so if you’re using Twitter.com or TweetDeck, you’re out of luck.