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An "ad hominem" attack is a fallacious tactic of deflection and shifting the focus of the argument. Equally so is an accusation of "ad hominem" attacks, where the accuser perceives a valid criticism as "mean-spirited" or "personal." On the surface, what the accuser's leveraging is nothing above the level of "you're just a hater" or "you're just jealous." However, what they're pretending to do is not accusing a person of being mean, but accusing their framing of the criticism as mean, as in "Your criticism is an ad hominem attack," which lends more credibility to the accusation.

What logical fallacy is this kind of deflection? On the surface, it's not targeted at a person, so it's not really an ad hominem argument. It seems to target the person's argument itself, so it's not a strawman argument either. What it only does is to mischaracterize a valid criticism and deems its tone or framing "mean," "snide," "rude," "personal," or "disrespectful," therefore worthy of dismissal.

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You describe the fallacy thusly:

What [the fallacy] only does is to mischaracterize a valid criticism and deems its tone or framing "mean," "snide," "rude," "personal," or "disrespectful," therefore worthy of dismissal.

This is a clear-cut case of an informal fallacy, a subspecies of ad hominem called tone policing. From WP:

A tone argument (also called tone policing) is a type of ad hominem aimed at the tone of an argument instead of its factual or logical content in order to dismiss a person's argument. Ignoring the truth or falsity of a statement, a tone argument instead focuses on the emotion with which it is expressed.

This, of course presumes that the accusation isn't fair, and the opposing party in the debate isn't actually engaging in ad hominem.

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  • In my experience, tone is kind of important. If people start insulting each other and trying to hurt and dominate each other, then they aren't listening to each other; they are not having a rational discussion.
    – causative ♦
    Commented Aug 3 at 17:44
  • @causative Yours is an observation of the different concerns of logical argumentation and rhetoric. The latter of course is more pragmatic in its concerns.
    – J D
    Commented Aug 3 at 19:01
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    Yes, but I see this as a moral defect of "rhetoric" and a social problem that it's so widespread. Society would be better off if we promoted norms that encourage rational discussion, not hurting/dominating each other. A viewpoint should "win" only if it is better justified than other viewpoints, not because it is shouted louder or with more derision for the opposing side.
    – causative ♦
    Commented Aug 3 at 19:07
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    @causative Well, you won't find me opposed to such a movement.
    – J D
    Commented Aug 3 at 22:12
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You're asking a simple question, and the answer is a lot simpler than it would seem, and probably boring. But technically, the logical fallacy is non sequitur.

It's not ad hominem because of the outer level of accusation you have said that the person put. They accused you, not of being mean, but of making a logical fallacy (ad hominem). That's in the same class of actions as accusing you of making an invalid inference, like failure to distribute the middle premise.

Since the accusation is false, it's a non sequitur used as a distraction.

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    Wouldn't a non sequitur have no relation to the argument itself? Here the accuser possibly acknowledges the validity of the argument, they just don't like the way it sounds and finds a way to deflect.
    – Vun-Hugh Vaw
    Commented Aug 3 at 17:26
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    Excuse me, then. I seem to have misunderstood the question.
    – Miss_Understands
    Commented Aug 3 at 17:28
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    Your not wrong in that strickly speaking the use of ad hominem and tone are not identical, but here tone is used in terms of tenor of meaning. Even a kindly insinuation that your opponent is personally attacking you carries with it an implication of unethical behavior. In the case when that accusation is false, it is still an accusation or attack no matter the literal tone of the speaker.
    – J D
    Commented Aug 3 at 22:24

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