zlacker

Can you explain what's wrong with whataboutism?

>>theslu+(OP)
Sure, several things:

It is basically changing the topic when you have no effective rebuttal to an argument/issue.

It also creates a false equivalence between the real issue and the "whatabout" issue.

In this case, GP has no answer to China going FAR beyond any reasonable measure by requiring any tourist to install spyware on their phone so they can access all private conversations, so GP wants to ignore that and talk about public info the US requires visitors disclose at the border.

The false equivalence is created by treating as parallel and roughly equivalent govt actions the requirement to install spyware vs divulging of SocMed accts.

I'm NOT saying that divulging SocMed accts could be a definite threat to a variety of classes of people, especially journalists writing undercover. But even for that specific example, which is worse, enumerating your public SocMed accounts, or installing spyware on your phone, which will divulge far more? Not even in the same ballpark.

In sum, Whataboutism is not only damaging the conversation, it can often also be a method of disingenuous argument.

>>theslu+(OP)
Other than being a logical fallacy it's also a race to the bottom in terms of what we (as a society) deem appropriate. "Oh what I did was wrong? Well what about that guy over there? Why aren't you judging him first?" The argument is usually in bad faith as if one problem can't be solved until we've dealt with everything else that's worse.

>>theslu+(OP)
> Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument

Like GP said, it derails discussions into talking about a different bad actor than the actual one committing the bad behavior, while (intentional or not) minimizing said behavior. In short, just because the bad behavior exists elsewhere does not justify doing the bad behavior, or makes it any less bad, and the act of pointing it out can be a poor attempt at distraction from culpability.

>>theslu+(OP)
The claim of "Whataboutism" is often used to try to prevent discussions of international affairs from dealing with the hypocrisy of one of the parties. "I can criticize you for X, but if you point out that I also do X, that's Whataboutism."