Godwin's law applies especially to inappropriate, inordinate, or
hyperbolic comparisons of other situations (or one's opponent) with Nazis – often referred to as "
playing the Hitler card". The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering known mainstays of
Nazi Germany such as
genocide,
eugenics, or
racial superiority, nor, more debatably,
to a discussion of other totalitarian regimes or ideologies[
citation needed], if that was the explicit topic of conversation, since a Nazi comparison in those circumstances may be appropriate, in effect committing the
fallacist's fallacy. Whether it applies to humorous use or references to oneself is open to interpretation, since this would not be a fallacious attack against a debate opponent.
While falling foul of Godwin's law tends to cause the individual making the comparison to lose his argument or credibility, Godwin's law itself can be abused as a distraction, diversion or even as censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate.[10] Similar criticisms of the "law" (or "at least the distorted version which purports to prohibit all comparisons to German crimes") have been made by Glenn Greenwald.[11]