> Even when the accusations are indisputably true and relevant?

You can probably construct an argument where the hypocrisy of some speaker advancing the argument would itself actually be relevant to the argument being advanced [0], but that's almost never the case in any real discussion; instead Whataboutism (and then tu quoque fallacy more generally) has the same rhetorical purpose as guilt by association or as hominem; create a negative emotional charge attached to some group associated with an argument, and use that to get people to dismiss the argument without considering it's merits.

The accusations in the motivating instances for naming Whataboutism were often both indisputably true and the same type of wrong as the act they served to distract from.(which is as close to relevance as charges of hypocrisy get.) They were still fallacious, just as this one is, irrespective of its truth or.degree of analogy.

[0] e.g., if the argument specifically included as a key point that the speaker did not engage in hypocrisy.

So, in your opinion, moral authority isn't a thing?

You can cry "whataboutism" all you want when confronted with examples like these ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r... ), but don't be surprised or dismayed when no one listens.

> So, in your opinion, moral authority isn't a thing?

Sure, it's a “thing”, specifically a name based on rationalization given to the cognitive filtering mechanism which a number of fallacies, notably as hominem and tu quoque, target.

But it's never relevant to the merits of the argument; targeting moral authority is always an effort to avoid consideration of the merits of the argument.

So, your point is valid, but it only applies to robots, not people. Is that pretty much the right way to view it?

If so, I sympathize. I get that a lot, myself.