Godwin's Law
E578395
Godwin's Law is an internet adage stating that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Godwin's law | 2 |
| Godwin's Law canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T6231141 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Godwin's Law Context triple: [Cunningham's Law, oftenMentionedWith, Godwin's Law]
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A.
Cunningham's Law
Cunningham's Law is an internet adage stating that the best way to get the right answer online is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer.
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B.
Kluge's law
Kluge's law is a proposed sound law in Proto-Germanic historical linguistics that explains the development of certain geminate consonants from earlier consonant clusters.
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C.
Postel’s law
Postel’s law is a design principle in computing and networking that advises systems to be conservative in what they send and liberal in what they accept, promoting robustness and interoperability.
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D.
Aitken’s Law
Aitken’s Law is a phonological rule in Scots and Scottish English that governs when vowels are pronounced long or short depending on their phonetic and morphological environment.
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E.
Linus’s Law
Linus’s Law is the open-source software development principle that “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow,” emphasizing the power of many reviewers to quickly find and fix defects.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Godwin's Law Target entity description: Godwin's Law is an internet adage stating that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.
-
A.
Cunningham's Law
Cunningham's Law is an internet adage stating that the best way to get the right answer online is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer.
-
B.
Kluge's law
Kluge's law is a proposed sound law in Proto-Germanic historical linguistics that explains the development of certain geminate consonants from earlier consonant clusters.
-
C.
Postel’s law
Postel’s law is a design principle in computing and networking that advises systems to be conservative in what they send and liberal in what they accept, promoting robustness and interoperability.
-
D.
Aitken’s Law
Aitken’s Law is a phonological rule in Scots and Scottish English that governs when vowels are pronounced long or short depending on their phonetic and morphological environment.
-
E.
Linus’s Law
Linus’s Law is the open-source software development principle that “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow,” emphasizing the power of many reviewers to quickly find and fix defects.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
informal rule
ⓘ
internet adage ⓘ proverb ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
Usenet discussions
ⓘ
email discussion lists ⓘ internet forums ⓘ online chat ⓘ social media discussions ⓘ |
| coreClaim | as an online discussion grows longer the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 ⓘ |
| culturalImpact |
became a reference point in discussions of online argumentation
ⓘ
popularized awareness of overuse of Nazi comparisons ⓘ |
| describes | online discussions ⓘ |
| field |
internet culture
ⓘ
online communication ⓘ sociology of the internet ⓘ |
| firstFormulatedOn | Usenet ⓘ |
| hasAlternativeName | Godwin's rule of Nazi analogies ⓘ |
| hasAuthor | Mike Godwin ⓘ |
| hasContext | early internet culture ⓘ |
| hasCreatorProfession |
internet law scholar
ⓘ
lawyer ⓘ |
| hasCriticism |
can be misused to shut down legitimate historical comparisons
ⓘ
may oversimplify complex political analogies ⓘ |
| hasFormulationYear | 1990 ⓘ |
| hasInterpretation |
frequent Nazi or Hitler analogies indicate breakdown of rational debate
ⓘ
long online discussions tend to devolve into extreme comparisons ⓘ |
| hasKeyPhrase | as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1 ⓘ |
| hasLanguage | English ⓘ |
| hasMedium | digital communication ⓘ |
| hasOriginCountry |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| hasPopularity | high in online culture ⓘ |
| hasPurpose |
comment on rhetorical escalation in online arguments
ⓘ
highlight trivialization of Nazi comparisons ⓘ |
| hasStatus |
popular meme
ⓘ
widely cited internet maxim ⓘ |
| hasSubject | probability of Nazi comparisons ⓘ |
| hasTypeOfProbability | informal probability ⓘ |
| influenced |
discourse about reductio ad Hitlerum
ⓘ
online moderation norms ⓘ |
| isNot |
formal law
ⓘ
mathematical theorem ⓘ |
| mentions |
Adolf Hitler
ⓘ
Nazis ⓘ
linked to:
Nazism
|
| namedAfter | Mike Godwin ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
Reductio ad Hitlerum
ⓘ
fallacy of inappropriate Nazi analogies ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Godwin's Law Description of subject: Godwin's Law is an internet adage stating that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Godwin's Law