Whataboutism

Also written: tu quoque, and you are lynching Negroes

Answering a criticism by pointing at someone else's alleged wrongdoing instead of addressing the criticism made.

Escalation:: Sophisticated / covert
Type:: Rhetorical

Where the term comes from

Lexicographic: Merriam-Webster carries an entry. The term is associated with Cold War rhetoric, where Soviet responses to Western criticism characteristically redirected to Western failings rather than answering.

Whataboutism is the most socially acceptable way to not answer a question.

^[1]

The move works because it does not look like an evasion. It looks like context, or like fairness, or like a reasonable objection to double standards — all of which are real things that sometimes matter. What makes it a tactic rather than an argument is the substitution: the original point is never returned to.

Why it works

A criticism creates a small obligation to respond. Whataboutism discharges that obligation by transferring it. You are now the one who owes an answer, about a different subject, and the original claim is left standing unexamined behind you.

It is also extremely hard to refuse without appearing evasive yourself. "That's not what we were discussing" is true, and it sounds exactly like what someone would say if they had no answer.

Recognising it

The reply concerns a different actor, a different time, or a different event
The comparison is offered instead of an answer, not alongside one
Declining to follow the diversion is characterised as dodging
Following it produces another diversion, indefinitely

What to do

The workable response is to concede the comparison cheaply and return to the point in the same breath: "Possibly — I don't know enough about that. On the thing I raised, though…" Refusing to engage at all reads as evasion; engaging fully means you have changed the subject on their terms.

If the diversion recurs after that, you are no longer in a disagreement about the subject, and the useful question becomes whether to continue at all.

Not the same as

A relevant comparison: Comparisons are often legitimate and necessary — consistency is a real standard. The tell is whether the comparison is offered in addition to an answer or instead of one.
Pointing out hypocrisy: Hypocrisy can be worth naming. It becomes whataboutism when the hypocrisy of the accuser is treated as settling the accusation, which it never does.

Responding at this level

Recognition matters more than response. The tell is the pattern across a conversation, never any single message, and the honest advice is to judge the exchange rather than the sentence.

Others at this level

Sealioning — Relentless, superficially polite demands for evidence that exhaust the target while preserving the appearance of good faith.
Conversational gaslighting — Denying what was plainly said or done until the other person doubts their own recollection.
DARVO — Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender — a documented response pattern that recasts the accused as the wronged party.

Sources

[1] Whataboutism (definition), Merriam-Webster [archived]
“the act or practice of responding to an accusation of wrongdoing by claiming that an offense committed by another is similar or worse”