[redwood]

That would make sense if you wanted to sow discord on the right. The post here does so for those that lean left. All of the above serve to weaken a sense that there's a difference between the autocratic China-Russia axis and the west.

[loup-vaillant]

Toplevel comment author here.

My main point was to remind that we too are at risk of suffering the same kind of authoritarianism we point our fingers to. Russia is currently being very blatant in how it uses trumped up charges to make an example of someone and discourage further opposition, but I felt obligated to remind everyone that they’re not the only ones.

The West does it less, and it does it more subtly, but everywhere I look (mostly Europe) there’s a substantial increase in the use of authoritarian practices. We’re not immune to full blown authoritarianism making a come back.

[0dayz]

Oh definitely, it's more annoying than anything.

I can sympathize with genuine causes but cheap potshots like whataboutism is just such a cynical means.

[voidr]

Pointing out hypocrisy is not "whataboutism" it's just simply pointing out hypocrisy.

This "whataboutism" was invented as a way to avoid uncomfortable comparisons, you can find a lot of stories in the west where if you replace Countryname with Russia and the story would sound plausible, here you go: "Russian whistleblower who uncovered that the Russian government spied on all of its people has fled to the US to avoid being imprisoned in Russia", talking about Snowden of course.

[0dayz]

Which is why I asked, what does Julian Assange unfair arrest have to do with Russia, as this was and still is the topic of this thread, not a general discussion about unfair arrests.

And further more, there's nothing stopping you or anyone else from opening a thread here and now where we can discuss the topic of unfair arrests.

>This "whataboutism" was invented as a way to avoid uncomfortable comparisons

If I invented the term "whatboutism" I would've been proud how certain people over-dramatize it's invention.

Whataboutism is just a more proper word for the logical fallacy "Tu quoque" or appeal to hypocrisy, which is used to divert attention away from the original specific topic and instead try and force the topic to either be as broad and inconsequential as possible or to make us focus on this 'hypocrite' to avert attention away from the original specific topic.

>you can find a lot of stories in the west where if you replace Countryname with Russia and the story would sound plausible

The assertion that replacing one country's name with another creates a "plausible" story is just overly reductive.

It says nothing about the context nor the specific situations at hand, you're effectively flipping the concern at hand.

Where the origin of the story is more important than the actual evidence at hand.