About

Informational Hazard, or Infohazard for short, refers to information that, when acquired by an individual, poses a risk to that individual or other people or can affect them in a detrimental way. Examples of infohazards include the Roko's Basilisk thought experiment, SCP-2521 in the SCP Foundation universe and, in a humorous way, The Game meme. Coined in 2011, the slang term spread in the following years online, becoming frequently mentioned in memes and other internet posts.

Origin

The term "information hazard" was first coined by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2011 in his scientific paper "Information Hazards: A Typology of Potential Harms from Knowledge," and was defined by him as "a risk that arises from the dissemination of true information that may cause harm or enable some agent to cause harm."^[1]

The concept of an information hazard itself existed for most of human history. For example, inadvertently acquiring classified military information by an individual would be considered an infohazard for that individual, putting them at risk.

Infohazard is a common theme in fiction, particularly in horror. For Instance, in H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulu Mythos, reading the Yellow Sign would put people under the control of the King in Yellow (shown below, left).^[2] Another example is multiple objects described in the SCP Foundation universe, most notably SCP-2521, a Keter-class object that attacks those who speak about it (illustration shown below, right).^[3][4]

Online Spread

In memes, a humorous example of an infohazard is The Game, a mind game in which thinking about The Game itself causes the player to lose. Becoming aware of The Game constitutes becoming aware of one's ability to lose at it, which inevitably happens. Moreover, spreading information mentioning The Game to anyone who is already aware of it causes them to lose it.

Prominent use of the term in SCP Foundation fiction has been a major factor in its popularization online. For example, on July 30th, 2021, Twitter^[5] user @bartimsonreal made a tweet that referred to Chris-Chan as a "Class IV infohazard." The tweet (shown below, left) received over 50 retweets and 490 likes in two years.

The term achieved more prominence online in early 2023, with more posts using it appearing across all major social platforms. For example, on March 2nd, 2023, Twitter^[6] user @powerbottomdad1 made a tweet that referred to the "learn to code" meme as an infohazard. The tweet (shown below, right) gained over 40 retweets and 1,100 retweets in five months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References