That’s one interpretation. The other point that waffleiron may be making is that shark fin harvesting is completely on brand for humanity with respect to factory farming.

My interpretation is that if we are going to do something on the shark fin industry, it makes complete sense to also take a look at factory farming.

Exactly, it we upvote that there is no excuse for the inhumanity of shark finning there are many other things there is no excuse for.

Shark finning should be banned but we should also be able to look at the inhumane things we ourselves are perpetuating instead of only those that don’t affect us.

This is a very emotional subject for many people here because people still have causes which perhaps feel are going unaddressed.

I hope that we can all celebrate this win, without getting mad at each other for celebrating it.

1. No human has time infinite time to champion every single cause we care about. Even the busiest, most proactive activist in your community deeply cares about things they have no time to do anything about.

2. People can (and should!) use language to disavow things. It is a low effort way of generating social contracts, which is a good thing!

3. If we disavow things that do not directly impact our day to day lives, it's a form of empathy.

4. Finally, people can disavow shark finning while still approve of animal farms. Count your blessings if you find any overlap at all with another person's values because then at least some change is possible.

I don’t think it’s whataboutism. The OC said they do not understand how a human can fin a shark because it’s cruel. The GP comment provided an example (factory farming animals) that illustrates animal cruelty is commonplace. That is to say, if you understand animal cruelty in factory farming, you should be able to understand animal cruelty in shark finning. I don’t think the GP intended to dismiss concerns about shark finning because factory farming exists.

You call it whataboutism, I call it calling out hypocrisy.

Saying: “ There's no excuse for that level of inhumanity.” when people excuse factory farming every day is hypocritical.

It’s easy to disavow this because it doesn’t affect you.

It's not calling out hypocrisy unless the poster also said "Mmm, love me some Tyson chickens." You don't know their stance on factory farming; they might even be a vegeratian.

Leaving something out is often just as revealing. It’s easy to make a comment disavowing something that doesn’t affect you or most other commenters on HN.

You don’t get to change the subject, and then complain that OP didn’t address what you want to talk about. You’re calling out hypocrisy that you haven’t even established exists.

Mate, this is a comment section. We all get to change the subject, as someone did to me by calling it whataboutism.

If you don’t like it, downvote and move on.