Whataboutism
Whataboutery · Tu Quoque · Appeal to Hypocrisy
The argument states that a certain position is false or wrong or should be disregarded because its proponent fails to act consistently in accordance with that position.
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Origin
The tactic was a standard Soviet Union propaganda strategy during the Cold War: any Western criticism of Soviet human rights abuses was met with "What about..." followed by a counter-accusation. The term's first known appearance in print was in a May 1978 letter in The Guardian, and it gained modern prominence when journalist Edward Lucas used it in a 2007 blog post, later reprinted in The Economist, to describe the resurgence of the tactic in post-Soviet Russian diplomacy.
Updated February 22, 2026