https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

>Rhetorically, sealioning fuses persistent questioning—often about basic information, information easily found elsewhere, or unrelated or tangential points—with a loudly-insisted-upon commitment to reasonable debate. It disguises itself as a sincere attempt to learn and communicate. Sealioning thus works both to exhaust a target's patience, attention, and communicative effort, and to portray the target as unreasonable. While the questions of the "sea lion" may seem innocent, they're intended maliciously and have harmful consequences.

>— Amy Johnson, Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (May 2019)

Perspectives on Harmful Speech Online: a collection of essays. August 2017. The Multiple Harms of Sea Lions, by Amy Johnson. p. 13-15

https://cyber.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.harvard.edu/files/2017...

>Sealioning is an intentional, combative performance of cluelessness.

>Even when sealioning is recognized, responding suitably can be difficult. There are no clear norms for
handling it—advice tends to simply suggest "Don’t feed the troll." While this may allow an individual to
navigate the moment, it doesn’t address broader effects on trust and learning.

>In many ways, sealioning resembles the Gish gallop, a rhetorical strategy that creationists deployed
when debating evolutionists in the late twentieth century. The Gish gallop — named for Duane Gish, a
biochemist who became a famed creationist debater — careens through topics, rattling through half-truth
after half-truth. It aims both to overwhelm opponents’ ability to respond and to introduce doubt into the
minds of audiences. As a result, Eugenie C. Scott, anthropologist and former executive director for the National Center for Science Education, advised evolutionists to avoid free-form debates. If debates simply had to be undertaken, Scott said, formal televised debates offered better spaces for argument — the focused structure reined in the Gish gallop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop

>The Gish gallop is a technique used during debating that focuses on overwhelming an opponent with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments. The term was coined by Eugenie Scott and named after the creationist Duane Gish, who used the technique frequently against proponents of evolution.

>Technique and counter measures

>During a Gish gallop, a debater confronts an opponent with a rapid series of many specious arguments, half-truths, and misrepresentations in a short space of time, which makes it impossible for the opponent to refute all of them within the format of a formal debate. In practice, each point raised by the "Gish galloper" takes considerably more time to refute or fact-check than it did to state in the first place. The technique wastes an opponent's time and may cast doubt on the opponent's debating ability for an audience unfamiliar with the technique, especially if no independent fact-checking is involved or if the audience has limited knowledge of the topics.

>Generally, it is more difficult to use the Gish gallop in a structured debate than in a free-form one. If a debater is familiar with an opponent who is known to use the Gish gallop, the technique may be countered by pre-empting and refuting the opponent's commonly used arguments first, before the opponent has an opportunity to launch into a Gish gallop.

>See also:

>Bullshit § Bullshit asymmetry principle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit#Bullshit_asymmetry_pr...

>Chewbacca defense – Nonsensical legal defense strategy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense

>Filibuster – Parliamentary procedure where debate over a proposed piece of legislation is extended, allowing one or more members to delay or entirely prevent a vote on the proposal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster

>Firehose of falsehood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood

>Proof by intimidation – A method of convincing someone by using jargons or claiming it as clear

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_by_intimidation

>Sealioning – Type of trolling or harassment

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

>Spreading (debate)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spreading_(debate)