Godwin's law
You might remember it as Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies
“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”
1994·Early web, before YouTube·informative
The observation that the longer an online argument goes on, the more likely somebody is to bring up the Nazis.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies
- Spread in
- 1994
- Began as
- A social-media post
- Format
- Phrase
- Made by
- Mike Godwin, an American lawyer
- What it said
- “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”
- Where it started
- Usenet
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
Mike Godwin's formulation, from Usenet in 1990 and published in Wired in 1994: as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. It was not an observation he found funny. He wrote it as a deliberate counter-meme, intended to make people notice the reflex and stop, because he thought the comparisons trivialised the Holocaust.
Godwin has spent thirty years correcting people about what his law does and does not say, including publicly reserving the right to make Nazi comparisons where they are warranted. In 2021 Harvard researchers tested the claim against Reddit and found the phenomenon does not occur at any statistically meaningful rate — a rare case of an internet proverb being empirically checked and not surviving.
Why it matteredWhat changed
A lawyer wrote it in 1990 as an experiment in whether an idea could be made to spread, and it did. The Oxford English Dictionary has it.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Godwin formulates the law, about discussions on Usenet.1
- Mainstream
It is added to the Oxford English Dictionary.1
- Corrected
Godwin says that comparing the marchers at Charlottesville to Nazis is fair.1
- Corrected
He writes that comparing Donald Trump to Hitler is acceptable.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asWhoever mentions Hitler has lost the argument.
ActuallyThat is a custom some forums added. Godwin rejects it, and says the law was never meant to stop all such comparisons.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · copied, redrawn and reused until the original stopped mattering · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This first circulated as a social-media post, not as a video upload. Originally published on usenet.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. There is no copy of it here either — what it was, when it appeared and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This first circulated as a social-media post, not as a video upload. Originally published on usenet.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things