Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
Furthermore, the concept of 'whataboutism' is almost always simply used to deflect from the fact that someone is going around deliberately provoking posters only to proclaim that any pushback in response is the worst thing ever and that any mention of the act leading to the response is somehow suddenly irrelevant even if it took place in the same thread.
No. "Whataboutism" is a deliberate attempt to compare an apple to a banana to claim that one viewpoint has equal validity to another. As someone else pointed out in a different thread, it's a superficial deontological argument that tries to claim that "if you claim X is a bad thing, then that means it must be bad ALL the time, no matter what". Such as claiming that if killing is wrong, then it's equally wrong for someone to kill an axe-wielding serial killer in self-defense. That is a "whataboutism".