Information Suppression

Definition: When bad news becomes unsafe to surface and truth cannot travel.

Why it matters: If truth can’t route, correction can’t happen until crisis forces visibility.

Quick Diagnostic

• Leaders are “surprised” repeatedly.
• Messengers are punished or sidelined.
• External discovery precedes internal.
  Cost of delay: crisis becomes the first honest audit.

Problem

Systems drift when truth becomes politically, socially, or economically dangerous. Suppression can be active (punishment) or passive (silence norms).

Mechanism

Risk surfacing → social penalty → silence → blind decisions → harm accumulates → external revelation

Early Indicators

• Declining near-miss reporting.
• “No one told me” culture.
• Performance narratives crowd out evidence.
• Retaliation rumors, even if unproven.
• Audits without behavioral change.

Examples

• Civilizational: inconvenient facts become taboo.
• Institutional: internal reports buried to protect legitimacy.
• Team: fear of conflict blocks escalation.

Control Opportunity

Design

• Protected reporting channels (independent).
• Dissent immunity + anti-retaliation enforcement.
• Truth routing norms: “bad news fast” rituals.
• External verification triggers.
• Separate narrative/comms from operational truth.

Measurement

• Time-to-escalation and time-to-action.
• Near-miss and concern reporting volume.
• External vs internal discovery ratio.
• Retaliation claims and outcomes.

Failure mode if missing
Reality returns through scandal, breach, or collapse.

Core Question

How safely can bad news travel upward?

Maps to Patterns

Bad News Suppression • Oversight Theater • Verification Gap • Crisis as Audit

Related Problems

Charisma Drift • Power Distance Expansion • Coordination Collapse Under Pressure

Routing

Hub • Drift • Controls (Social) • Daily Brief • Field Notes