Twitter adds Tapbacks to its direct messages

An emoji is worth a thousand words.

Twitter has given its users a new way to express themselves with the recent introduction of Tapbacks for direct messages. The new feature has been dubbed "emoji reactions" and essentially mimics Apple's infamous iMessage Tapbacks by allowing users to respond to incoming or outgoing messages with one of six popular emoji, including the red heart, thumbs up, and thumbs down.

The social media giant posted the official announcement to its Twitter Support page along with additional details on how the new feature can be accessed.

"To add a reaction, hover over the message and click the reaction button (heart and plus icon), or double tap on the message and pick an emoji from the pop-up. You can undo a reaction at any time and it will be removed from the message for all participants. Additionally, all conversation participants will receive a notification any time a new reaction is added to a message."

Emoji reactions are currently available on mobile and desktop versions of the social media platform, however, Twitter notes that people using older versions of the Twitter for iOS or Android app may end up seeing reactions displayed as text-based messages.