> I still thought it had to do with flattering the user?

Assuming the user to be correct, and ignoring contradictory evidence to come up with a rationalization that favours the user's point of view, can be considered a kind of flattery.

But we could use this plausible, but jumping through hoops definition of sycophancy… or we could just use a straightforward understanding of alignment, I mean, the newer bots are just sticking closer to the user request.