Godwin's Law
Godwin's law, short for Godwin's law (or rule) of Nazi analogies,[1][2] is an Internet adage asserting that as an online discussion grows longer (regardless of topic or scope), the probability of the word "Nazi" appearing or Adolf Hitler approaches 1.[2][3]
Promulgated by the American attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990,[2] Godwin's law originally referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions.[4] He stated that he introduced Godwin's law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics.[2] Later it was applied to any Conversation or online discussion, such as Internet forums, chat rooms, and comment threads, as well as to speeches, articles, and other rhetoric[5][6] where reductio ad Hitlerum occurs.
In 2012, "Godwin's law" became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.[7] In 2021, Harvard researchers published an article showing the phenomenon occurs with statistically meaningful frequency e erywhere but Reddit discussions.[8][9]
Generalization, corollaries, and usage
There are many corollaries to Godwin's law, some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself)[3] than others.[1] For example, there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that, when a Hitler comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever made the comparison loses whatever debate is in progress.[10] This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's law.[11][12]
See also
Further reading
- No Nazi comparisons? Sounds like something Hitler would say! (September 1, 2011).
==External links== *"I Seem to be a Verb"; Mike Godwin's commentary on the 18th anniversary of Godwin's law
- Interview with "Mike Godwin on Godwin's Law" by Dan Amira, New York magazine, March 8, 2013
- Wired 2.10; Meme, Counter-Meme by Mike Godwin
References
- โ 1.0 1.1 Tim Skirvin (September 15, 1999). How to post about Hitler and get away with itโthe Godwin's law FAQ. Skirv's Wiki.
- โ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Godwin, Mike (October 1994). "Meme, Counter-meme". Wired. https://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/godwin.if_pr.html. Retrieved March 24, 2006.
- โ 3.0 3.1 Godwin, Mike (January 12, 1995). Godwin's law of Hitler Analogies (and Corollaries) pp. "Net Culture โ Humor" archive section. Electronic Frontier Foundation.
- โ Template:Cite newsgroup
- โ Goldacre, Ben (September 16, 2010). Pope aligns atheists with Nazis. Bizarre. Transcript here.. bengoldacre โ secondary blog.
- โ broken cite news
- โ Godwin's law. Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press.
- โ Harrison, Stephen (2022-01-24). Has Godwinโs Law, the Rule of Nazi Comparisons, Been Disproved? (en).
- โ Fariello, Gabriele; Jemielniak, Dariusz; Sulkowski, Adam (2021-12-07). "Does Godwinโs law (rule of Nazi analogies) apply in observable reality? An empirical study of selected words in 199 million Reddit posts" (in en). New Media & Society (SAGE Publishing). doi:10.1177/14614448211062070. ISSN 1461-4448. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14614448211062070.
- โ "Internet rules and laws: the top 10, from Godwin to Poe". The Daily Telegraph (London), October 23, 2009.
- โ Template:Cite episode
- โ David Weigel, "Hands Off Hitler! It's time to repeal Godwin's Law" Reason (magazine), July 14, 2005