Is that a concept that exists, where you write a shitty criticism of something in order to make people go "That actually sounds pretty good" and it ends up working as an endorsement or advertisement? Sort of an on-purpose Streisand effect?
I've often wondered about that with some online interactions. Sometimes, a "defense" of P is so poorly argued that it seems almost intentional, as if designed to provoke the well-sourced, well-argued rebuttals that almost invariably follow immediately.
Logically speaking, these rebuttals should not discredit the proposition P itself, only a particular argument for P (e.g. refuting the ontological proof of the existence of God does not thereby refute theism). But when such exchanges happen frequently enough they can give rise to the widespread impression that P has no smart, thoughful defenders, so the overall effect is similar.
Returns are hard because in practice, 11" (or 10.5") baskets are one such item that are just sold and returned on Amazon for appearances, as the dimensions probably makes shipping cost-prohibitive, but Amazon knows that they can't just say "keep it" because then people would fake-return stuff all the time.