Information hazard

The fictional SCP Foundation mythos employs information hazards as a common trope. Many of the fictional universe's anomalous objects and organisms are described as having "cognitohazardous" or "infohazardous" properties and abilities, which harm those who attempt to observe or learn about them without proper protection (or at all). An example of this is SCP-2521, a humanoid being which cannot be described in words due to its infohazardous properties. According to the story, should anyone attempt to describe SCP-2521 by using words, either by writing information down or reciting it, SCP-2521 will appear and abduct the individual attempting to describe it. For this reason, on the SCP website, SCP-2521's name is censored as '●●|●●●●●|●●|●', and its description is composed of pictograms, which it cannot understand.[3][4]

In literature, the book Snow Crash depicted a weapon used against programmers that was likened to an exploit in mental architecture, albeit one only operating because of the specific knowledge of programming opening a flaw in the mind. David Langford created a series of stories about the Barryman-Langford Imaging Technique, or BLIT, a mathematical manner of generating harmful images that can induce convulsions, paralysis, and death.[5] In universe, the most infamous of these is the Parrot, used in acts of terrorism and violence, being a weapon that can be deployed by broadcast or display in public.[5]

Another prominent literary example appears in the novel Infinite Jest in the form of a film (also called Infinite Jest) that causes any viewer to lose interest in anything other than repeated viewing, so they eventually die. The film is sought by terrorist groups and government agencies to use as a weapon.

Possibly the most famous literary example is Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, knowledge of which destroys sanity. Lovecraft's stories have many examples of protagonists losing their grip on reality as a result of learning about Mythos entities and even going mad from witnessing "Non-Euclidean geometry".

Monty Python's "The Funniest Joke in the World" is also a prominent fictional example, being a joke that causes uncontrollable laughter and eventually death.

A classic example, known as Roko's basilisk, describes an inevitable future artificial intelligence (whether good or evil) that would gain from punishing everyone who failed to help bring it into existence; anyone who learned of this concept yet failed to proactively help bring about its existence would be punished.[6]

The 2014 horror film The Babadook depicts a monster called the Babadook that would terrorize anyone who knew about its existence.

One example of a real-world infohazard is "The Game". The Game is a popular mind game, in which the losing condition is thinking about the game itself. Upon losing, the player must tell at least one other person that they've lost - usually by reciting the phrase 'You just lost The Game' - consequently causing a domino effect akin to a chain letter. Knowing about The Game is all that is required to play it.

Some elements of sleep paralysis are treated as an infohazard in the documentary film The Nightmare. One of the subjects says that he developed hallucinations of "shadow people" during his sleep paralysis episodes after his friend told him about seeing them during their own sleep paralysis.

There is no official classification for informational hazards, but commonly used types are:

• Data hazards: A piece of data that can be used to harm others, such as the DNA sequence of a lethal pathogen
• Idea hazards: General ideas that can harm others if fulfilled
• Knowing-too-much hazards: Information that if known, can cause danger to the person who knows it. For example, in the 1600s, women who knew about the occult were at a higher risk of being accused of witchcraft.[7]

• LessWrong
• SCP Foundation
• Knowledge (legal construct)
• McCollough effect