Michael Wayne Godwin (born October 26, 1956) is an American attorney and author. He was the first staff counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and he created the Internet adage Godwin's law and the notion of an Internet meme.[1] From July 2007 to October 2010, he was general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation. In March 2011, he was elected to the Open Source Initiative board.[2] Godwin has served as a contributing editor of Reason magazine since 1994.[3] In April 2019, he was elected to the Internet Society board.[4] From 2015 to 2020, he was general counsel and director of innovation policy at the R Street Institute.[5][6] In August 2020, he and the Blackstone Law Group filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration on behalf of the employees of TikTok,[7] and worked there between June 2021 and June 2022. Since October 2022, he has worked as the policy and privacy lead at Anonym,[8] a "privacy-safe advertising" startup.
^Godwin, Mike (October 1994). "Meme, Counter-meme". Wired. Retrieved March 24, 2006.
^"Board Meeting Report". Open Source Initiative. March 17, 2011. Archived from the original on October 1, 2019. Retrieved March 17, 2011.
^"Mike Godwin : Contributors". Reason.com. Retrieved September 23, 2013.
^Al-Saqaf, Walid (April 18, 2019). "2019 Internet Society Board of Trustees Final Election Results". Retrieved May 1, 2019.
^"Internet ain't broke, don't let AG try to fix it". clarionledger.com. February 11, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2015.
^Amira, Dan; Godwin, Mike (March 8, 2013). "Mike Godwin on Godwin's Law, Whether Nazi Comparisons Have Gotten Worse, and Being Compared to Hitler by His Daughter". "Intelligencer" department. New York. Retrieved September 23, 2013.
^"Mike Godwin, the Creator of Godwin's Law, Is Suing Trump Over His TikTok Executive Order". Reason.com. August 24, 2020. Retrieved August 31, 2020.
^Godwin, Mike. "Mike Godwin on LinkedIn". LinkedIn. Retrieved September 7, 2022.
Michael Wayne Godwin (born October 26, 1956) is an American attorney and author. He was the first staff counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)...
fugitive MikeGodwin (born 1956), American lawyer, created Godwin's law of Internet discussions (mentioning Hitler) Godwin Emefiele, Nigerian banker Godwin Igwebuike...
name is from the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972. MikeGodwin coined the term Internet meme in 1993 when he discussed memes as spreading...
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position as legal counsel, effective April 1, 2007. He was replaced by MikeGodwin who served as general counsel and legal coordinator from July 2007 to...
reductio ad Hitlerum. Godwin's law asserts that a Nazi analogy is increasingly likely the longer an internet discussion continues; MikeGodwin also stated that...
speech lawyer MikeGodwin. It was first published in 1998 by Times Books. It was republished in 2003 as a revised edition by The MIT Press. Godwin graduated...
and collectivism. Stephenson at this time would later be described by MikeGodwin as "a slight, unassuming grad-student type whose soft-spoken demeanor...
founder and leader of the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project MikeGodwin, former general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation (2007–2010) Martin...
concerned about the potential for overreach. EFF was formed in 1990 and MikeGodwin, also a WELL member, was hired as the first on-staff attorney. Barlow...
offended at even the mention of Xenu by nonmembers." The free speech lawyer MikeGodwin analyzes actions by the Scientology organization to protect and keep...
Vedro Digital Dharma, p. 190, Quest Books, 2007 ISBN 978-0-8356-0859-6 MikeGodwin Cyber Rights, p. 219, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2003...
claims of transparency". National Post. Retrieved July 10, 2017. Klassen, Mike (September 25, 2010). "Vision donor Drummond Pike steps down as Tides boss"...
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh MikeGodwin Harshad Gune Christine Hall Leslie Hawthorn Joi Ito Jim Jagielski Fabio Kon Raj Mathur Martin Michlmayr Mike Milinkovich Ian...
benefactor.[non-primary source needed][unreliable source?] In 1990, MikeGodwin joined the organization as its first staff counsel. Then in 1991, Esther...
as it achieves self-awareness. The character Michael Godwin was named after attorney MikeGodwin to thank for his technical assistance in linking Sterling...
Hannah Godwin (born February 4, 1995) is an American television personality, model and YouTuber. She appeared on season 23 of The Bachelor, where she received...
position after yet another arrest for DUI; the Wikimedia Foundation lawyer, MikeGodwin, was quoted as saying, "We've never had any documentation of any criminal...
encyclopedia was illegal under 18 U.S.C. §701. Wikimedia's general counsel, MikeGodwin, declined to comply, stating that the FBI was misconstruing the law,...
had briefly considered legal action. After the block had been removed, MikeGodwin, general counsel for the Wikimedia Foundation, stated "there is still...
On April 16, 2017, 74-year-old Robert Lee Godwin Sr. (September 7, 1942 – April 16, 2017) was shot and killed while walking in the Glenville neighborhood...
Future of Ideas, and Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig Cyber Rights by MikeGodwin E-Commerce and Internet Law: Treatise with Forms 2d edition, by Ian C...
of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." Coined by MikeGodwin in 1990. Gompertz–Makeham law of mortality: the death rate is the sum...
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