Just Asking Questions

Just Asking Questions (JAQ) is a pseudoskeptical^[1] tactic.

JAQ is used by conspiracy theorists to promote false claims by phrasing them as questions. They often claim to be "only asking questions" about certain proven facts, such as the Holocaust, the Holodomor, and Assyrian genocide.

Just Asking Questions (JAQ) is often used among Holocaust deniers, who tend to ask questions with false assumptions to cast doubt on the genocide of Jews in WWII Nazi-occupied land.^[2]

Writing for the Slate magazine, Johannes Breit, a German historian, stated that JAQ had been seen frequently in posts made by Holocaust deniers in Reddit's r/AskHistorian subreddit (2.2M subscribers), which prompted its moderators to ban them from participation in 2018.^[2] American historian Deborah Lipstadt (1947 – ) commented on JAQ's potential impact:^[2]

[... p]roperly camouflaged, Holocaust denial has a good chance of finding a foothold among coming generations.

The Institute for Historical Review (IHR), a self-declared academic group that has been promoting Holocaust denial since 1978,^[3] uses JAQ in most of their publications.^[3] The Counter Extremism Project summarized IHR's activities as follows:^[2]

[t]hey do not deny history but seek to provide more in-depth investigations to ascertain the truth [. ...] claims to have no position [... but] "encourage more objective investigation."

The IHR claims that global “Holocaust remembrance” is designated to "further Jewish-Zionist interests."^[2][3] The IHR also promoted the myth that "Nazi Germany actively supported Zionism".^[3] IHR's Holocaust distortion has had a considerable impact across the political spectrum. Former London mayor Ken Livingstone (1945 – ), who was a British Labour Party member until 2018, promoted the myth,^[4] so did PA's leader^[5] and American Trotskyist activist writer Lenni Brenner (1937 – ) who published a book endorsing the myth.^[6][7]

Since then, Brenner has denied encouraging Holocaust distortion,^[7] despite the book's content being cited by some^[who?] on both the far right and far left to trivialize the Holocaust.

Sealioning is a similar concept to JAQ. Sealioning refers to the act of repeating the same questions that have already been answered while faking ignorance and politeness. It is also common on online forums and social media.