[pphysch]

"Whataboutism" is not a logical fallacy, in fact it is the opposite.

"We need to do X because A is bad because it does Y"

"But we also do Y, shouldn't we also do X for us?"

Logic says yes. "Whataboutism" was invented to kill basic logical inference, in the context of the bipolar Cold War era. Using that term to kill discussion and browbeat is anti-intellectualism, pure and simple.

[ImPostingOnHN]

whataboutism is simply another word for tu quoque, which, as previously indicated, is a logical fallacy

indeed, the whataboutism itself is intended to kill discussion of the initial topic (in your example, A doing Y, not simply Y), hence why it's a logical fallacy, too

[pphysch]

There's a world of difference between saying "you're a hypocrite, stop talking" and adding (uncomfortable) context to a discussion.

[ImPostingOnHN]

you are absolutely, 100% right here, and whataboutism is the first one, not the second one

in this case, the goal was to stop people from talking about China's actions and instead deflect to someone else's actions

that might explain why Whataboutism, invented by russian propagandists, is explicitly described as a subtype of the tu quoque logical fallacy:

"From a logical and argumentative point of view it is considered a variant of the tu-quoque pattern (Latin 'you too', term for a counter-accusation), which is a subtype of the ad-hominem argument."[0]

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

[pphysch]

> the goal was to stop people from talking about China's actions

You made this up. Nowhere in this thread is it implied.

[ImPostingOnHN]

this is false.

as an example, look at whether, after the whataboutism, we're discussing the original topic (Tiktok & its actions) or something/someone else.

see? whataboutism deflection succeeded.

it should be clear now why whataboutism is indeed, as shown above, explicitly defined as a logical fallacy, despite the made-up claim that it isn't one.