The Canberra Liberals are demanding an apology from ACT Labor over a posting on the social networking site this week by a senior ALP official, describing a Liberal female staffer as a ''twitter troll''.

But Labor will not apologise, suggesting that Liberals leader Zed Seselja is not up-to-date with the language of the internet, where the term troll is in common usage.

Chief Minister Katy Gallagher has instead suggested that a set of guidelines be drafted to govern the conduct of political debate on the internet in the lead-up to October's territory election.

The trouble started on Tuesday as local Twitter feeds ran hot, following The Canberra Times' story about the ACT Labor Clubs' funding of the territory's branch of the party.

In response to a Tweet by Liberal staffer Hannah Passfield, which referenced an article in The Australian, Labor's ACT branch secretary Elias Hallaj tweeted that Ms Passfield was a ''Liberal troll'', using inaccurate reporting to smear the ALP.

Both Mr Hallaj and Ms Passfield are regular tweeters on local politics but neither of their Twitter profiles identifies them as political professionals.

Online dictionary Wikipedia defines a troll, in internet slang, as ''someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion''.

But Mr Seselja took a different interpretation of the word, firing off an email to Ms Gallagher accusing Mr Hallaj of sexism and bullying.

''I recall you stating on television that you sought to run a positive and clean campaign this year,'' Mr Seselja wrote to Ms Gallagher.

''This is gutter politics of the very worst kind.

''Therefore, I call on you, as the head of your party, to order this tweet be retracted immediately, that Mr Hallaj apologise and you publicly state you condemn utterly these cowardly personal attacks.''

But there will be no apology, with Ms Gallagher writing back to the leader of the Opposition and suggesting that he was operating under a ''striking misapprehension'' of what the word troll mean in the context it was used.

''The term is used to refer to an online forum contributor who might be behaving in a particularly irksome manner,'' the Chief Minister wrote. ''Whether or not you agree that this description applies to your paid political staff and their use of Twitter - and I pass no judgment here - I sincerely doubt any reasonable person would, as your email does, describe the offending tweet and the use of the term troll as being 'gutter politics of the very worst kind'.''

But Ms Gallagher said she would be writing to the Assembly's Speaker Shane Rattenbury and asking him to draft guidelines covering the political use of social networks by ACT politicians and their staff.

This reporter is on Twitter: @noeltowell