Mike Godwin

Mike Godwin
Born
Michael Wayne Godwin

(1956-10-26) October 26, 1956 (age 68)
Houston, Texas, U.S.
EducationUniversity of Texas, Austin (BA, JD)
Known forGodwin's law

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.

  1. ^ Godwin, Mike (October 1994). "Meme, Counter-meme". Wired. Retrieved March 24, 2006.
  2. ^ "Board Meeting Report". Open Source Initiative. March 17, 2011. Archived from the original on October 1, 2019. Retrieved March 17, 2011.
  3. ^ "Mike Godwin : Contributors". Reason.com. Retrieved September 23, 2013.
  4. ^ Al-Saqaf, Walid (April 18, 2019). "2019 Internet Society Board of Trustees Final Election Results". Retrieved May 1, 2019.
  5. ^ "Internet ain't broke, don't let AG try to fix it". clarionledger.com. February 11, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2015.
  6. ^ 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.
  7. ^ "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.
  8. ^ Godwin, Mike. "Mike Godwin on LinkedIn". LinkedIn. Retrieved September 7, 2022.