Involves

Word

Infohazard

IN-foh-haz-urd · noun

True information that does harm simply by being known, like the recipe for a weapon or an idea that damages whoever learns it

Examples

  • Detailed instructions for synthesizing a pathogen are a textbook infohazard.

  • Editors withheld the method as an infohazard, publishing the finding without the how-to.

Origin

Coined by the philosopher Nick Bostrom in a 2011 paper that built a taxonomy of information hazards. The word joins “information” with “hazard,” by analogy to biohazard, a danger that spreads by being known rather than by being touched.

How it connects

A name for the rare case where the risk is not false information but true information.

This word appeared in Ideas that punish knowing them, the Involves connection for July 24, 2026, which asked: Can a piece of true information hurt you simply by being known?

Check yourself

What is an information hazard?

Information whose mere spread or possession can cause harm.. Right. Bostrom's term is about risk from true information: knowing or sharing it can itself do damage.

What the sources establish

  • Bostrom defined an information hazard as a risk arising from the dissemination of (typically true) information and catalogued many types.

Sources