Godwin's Law

About

Godwin's Law is an internet adage that is derived from one of the earliest bits of Usenet wisdoms, which posits that "if you mention Adolf Hitler or Nazis within a discussion thread, you've automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in."

Origin

Mike Godwin coined his observation as a "natural law of Usenet" in 1990. For more information about Godwin's Law, check out the original FAQ page.^[1] According to the online slang dictionary Jargon File:

Spread

While Godwin's Law was originally conceived for the Usenet newsgroup discussions, the humorous rule remains just as applicable today in any threaded online discussion, such as message boards, chat rooms, comment threads and wiki talk pages. Since the dawn of online discussions, Godwin's Law has been used as an indicator of whether a thread has gone on too long, who's playing fair and who's just slinging mud and who finally gets to "win" the discussion.

On October 9th, 2009, the /r/GodwinsLaw^[24] subreddit launched. As of August 2017, the subreddit has more than 1,700 subscribers. The subreddit is described as "the place to highlight those who belittle horror of the the most reprehensible figures in history by comparing them to people and things they simply don't like."

In 2012, Godwin's Law was added to the Oxford English Dictionary (definition below).^[2][25]

On July 8th, 2015, PBS Ideas' Channel^[21] published "Three Laws of The Internet Explained!" which featured a section on Godwin's Law. The post (shown below, left) received more than 230,000 views in two years.

Two years later, on January 29th, 2017, YouTuber ^[22] QI: Quite Interesting uploaded the video "What Is Godwin's Law?" The post (shown below, right) received more than 52,000 views in eight months.

On March 30th, 2017, Redditor^[23] randomusername123458 posted "TIL that Godwin's law states that 'As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1'" in /r/todayilearned subreddit. The post received more than 1,800 points (87% upvoted) and 190 comments in five months.

Godwin's Response

In a 1994 Wired^[5] article titled "Meme, counter-meme," Godwin explained how he "seeded" the Law as a trivialization and a counterpoint to the gratuitous Nazi comparisons found on Usenet groups. Know Your Meme researchers have found this to be one of the first uses of "meme" to refer to viral media & the general spread of ideas via Internet communications.

Exception

Following the controversial Unite The Right Rally neo-Nazi gathering in August 2017, Mike Godwin responded to the controversy on Twitter. On August 13th, 2017, he tweeted ^[15] "By all means, compare these shitheads to Nazis. Again and again. I'm with you." The tweet (shown below) received more than 20,000 retweets and 48,000 likes in less than a week.

Several news outlets covered Godwin's tweet, including The Washington Post,^[16] The Telegraph,^[17] Sacramento Bee,^[18] Esquire,^[19] HuffPost^[20] and more.

Notable Examples

• In 2007, Slashdot noted that Godwin's Law affected an ongoing, highly public dispute between Linux author Linus Torvalds and the GNOME project.

• A May 2007 issue of Randall Munroe's webcomic xkcd anachronistically portrays Allied officers trying to discuss Axis military tactics, but being interrupted by Godwin's Law.

• Similarly, a November 2007 issue of Jeph Jacques's webcomic Questionable Content, entitled "Godwin Wars", referenced (and contrasted) Godwin's law and the reductio ad Hitlerum.

• In October 2007 issue, Wired published a "Geekipedia" piece that includes an entry for "Godwin's law" among "people, place, ideas, and trends you need to know now".

• By 2007, The Economist had declared that "a good rule in most discussions is that the first person to call the other a Nazi automatically loses the argument."

Search Interest

External References