Logically speaking, red herring is a fallacy of shifting focus, and it is also a deliberate "Ignoratio elenchi", such as supporting a conclusion with a wrong premise or combining two unrelated premises with a hypothesis.

Dramatically

In the creation of literature, drama, especially mystery novels, red herring usually represents the bait to mislead readers, making them mistakenly think that someone or an event is the murderer or the key to solving the case before seeing the ending.

● Public relations and publicity

Red herring is also often used in public relations and political propaganda, using new events or problems to divert people's attention from the original problems. Red herring is often used to deal with the crisis faced by the government or enterprises, and throws another irrelevant problem when the crisis occurs; Or cooperate with the "floating" method to confuse the masses.