this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
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"Whataboutism" is one of the most prevalent logical fallacies. It never makes any sense.
If the much worse enemies of the USA have a lot to gain by the USA's downfall and are actively promoting said downfall, then it's not whataboutism to unmask them like a scooby doo villain.
Tankies don't give af about trans rights, Tankies don't give af about any human rights, Tankies don't want you to live and flourish in any capacity at all. Do not be fooled by their rhetoric all over Lemmy.
It's mostly from .ml in my experience, Hell, look at the goons spouting off against tgis post in these very comments. .ml
IMO, self respecting instances need to defederate from .ml so they are not so overrun by tankie clapping sealions... Just like with hexbear, they deserve to be silenced by social forces.
It's literally a crime to portray LGBT in Chinese media, they've been censoring it harder than ever recently.
Don't even get me started on Russia or Iran.
Another top contender is that all things with defects or drawbacks are equally horrible and unacceptable.
However it can be used to point out someone's hypocrisy. If country A is genociding people from country B, while screaming about people from country B genociding people from country C, "what about your genocide" is an appropriate response.
Calling out hypocrisy can be valid but it must further discussion, not shut it down. In your example, if country A is committing genocide while condemning country B for genocide, the problem isn't just country B’s actions. It's that country A is deflecting from its own crimes instead of addressing them.
Saying 'what about your genocide' only matters if it leads to accountability for both. If it's just used to avoid taking responsibility, then it's whataboutism. It shifts the focus without solving anything.
To reiterate, whataboutism is deflection meant to shut down further discussion.
Appealing to hypocrisy is a fallacy, full stop. Someone can be a hypocrite but that has no bearing on whether an action is justifiable for both/neither.
The infallabile "ha, gotcha" fallacy