Megan Rose Dickey writes:

"Favoriting" tweets is becoming increasingly more popular on Twitter, The Wall Street Journal reports.

In May 2013, Twitter users favorited tweets 1.6 billion times, according to data analytics company Topsy. That's four times the amount of favorites from May 2012.

Favoriting is essentially Twitter'sversion of Facebook's Like, where users mark interesting or amusing content with a star.

It's a way of saying you like the content without commenting on it or resharing it.

If someone tweets something controversial that you agree with, but don't necessarily want to broadcast, favoriting is the best option. 

Favoriting really took off after Twitter redesigned its website in app in December 2011 (see chart below). At the time, Twitter updated its website and apps to include "interactions" in its "@a" mentions section.