Why would noobs to the internet happen across Godwin's law as one of the first things they do I wonder?
It only took me, oh, 17 years on the internet to hear of it.
Back in the pre-www days, conversation on the internet was dominated by Usenet 'news.' Ie the places with name like 'can.politics' that was later served up by Dejanews and Google Groups. These pre-dated the web, with browsers like Mosaic or Netscape.
Godwin's law was a very well known etiquette on usenet, so 'newbies' would often run into it. It kind of stated that all arguments tend to devolve quickly to comparisons with Hitler or Nazis, so more experienced people would avoid doing so in arguments. Newbies would be unaware, and tend to fall into doing it in the heat of an argument, and then have Godwin's law quoted to them.
With the rise of the web, forums have eclipsed Usenet, but the people experienced with Usenet brought along to forums the same etiquette. They were likely only a small (and really geeky) subset compared to the much bigger, newer population of www forums, but the godwin etiquette has slowly caught on outside the hardcore geek world. (Think Big Bang Theory.)
So, you're likely not a techie, and haven't argued too much with them.
Signed,
recoverying techie from the old internet days, who still remembers how cool Mosaic and Netscape were at the time.
