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The important questions: What is a 'sub-fave,' and is it acceptable Twitter etiquette?

Calum Marsh: It’s a bit like the social strife in a Henry James novel. You simply must navigate the discord the proper way

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Etiquette tends to develop in concert with leaps in technological evolution – and so it was that the very moment we were introduced to Twitter, we inaugurated uncompromising rules around subtweeting.

A subtweet, for the uninitiated, is a sort of glancing barb dispatched by one Twitter user and directed expressly at another, only obscure enough that the identity of the intended recipient isn’t made obvious. It’s an insult hazarded behind someone’s back. And Twitter etiquette dictates that it be done discreetly, with tact, so that, if possible the insulted doesn’t know.

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It’s a bit like the social strife in a Henry James novel. You simply must navigate the discord the proper way.

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More arcane are the rules of conduct around what’s known informally as “sub-faving.” This one is a little bit more difficult to explain. The sub-fave is a kind of passive-aggressive endorsement. It occurs when a Twitter user entirely uninvolved in a conflict between two other users brazenly likes or “favourites” one side’s replies.

Suppose I’ve tweeted that I find so-and-so’s opinions on the matter of foreign policy simplistic and vile. So-and-so, bristling at the charge, fires back that I’m ignorant and naive — and from the internet ether materializes a third party to fave his cutting riposte. This partisan interloper has sent an unambiguous message: I am wrong. So-and-so has got the better of me and I had better back down now.

Is such a gambit acceptable or rude? Twitter protocol isn’t so clear on the point.

On the one hand, sub-faving seems a rather harmless exercise. Clicking that little heart icon requires next to no effort, after all, and the sentiment expressed is as meagre as it is plain. The sub-faver impresses an attitude of dissent upon a person in the wrong without having to invest much in the conflict or tender any intellectual stake.

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And yet it may be precisely this ease – this near-total lack of investment or effort on the part of the passive aggressor – which renders the sub-fave an infraction of Twitter politesse. The sub-tweeter, in the very least, submits his invective to public scrutiny, and therefore invites disapproval, disagreement, even protest. The sub-faver, meanwhile, is brusque without risk, critical without any chance of requital. It is ill-mannered and undiplomatic. You might even say it’s cowardly.

Of course, the courteous and gentlemanly needn’t resort to such barbaric gestures. Instead, online foes may be challenged and trounced in column inches: the well-bred writer should seek vengeance in the form of the sub-column, in which a petty vendetta is smuggled into print under the guise of professional journalism.

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