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Author(s): JakdragonX

Title: SCP-5343 - "The 'For-You News' App!"

Other Works:

SCP-5850 - "A Train to Hell."

SCP-5150 - "Anomalous Dental Office."

More From This Author

ITEM #:

SCP-5343

OBJECT CLASS:

Special Containment Procedures: A single copy of SCP-5343 is contained within a storage locker in Site-134. Foundation webcrawlers assigned to SCP-5343 are to monitor all mobile application distribution services for activity relating to this anomaly. If SCP-5343 is discovered, Foundation agents integrated within these services are to purge its ability to transfer files.

Human subjects who have been affected by SCP-5343 must have their mobile devices confiscated. A computed tomography (CT) brain scan must also be performed and physically stored on-site for future reference. Once the subject undergoes basic recovered-memory therapies and is cleared by on-site medical staff of all related issues, the use of Class C amnestics prior to re-integration into the general public is required.

In the event that a human subject perishes due to exposure to SCP-5343, recovered autopsies are to be stored and evaluated for significant changes.

Description: SCP-5343 is a mobile news application operating on all hand-held devices. Although media presented on SCP-5343 varies, information within these publications can directly or indirectly affect the subjects operating the application. Information presented on SCP-5343 includes:

Stories about the affected subject. The events covered may range from anywhere between the subject's birth and the subject's death.

Informative news snippets about the affected subject's relatives or close friends.

Reports concerning events that have directly affected, or will affect the subject.

Photographed or recorded footage of the subject.1

After a period from anywhere between 4 weeks and 2 years, subjects affected by SCP-5343 experience permanent anterograde and retrograde amnesia. This has been attributed to the scarring of cerebral tissues within the affected subjects' temporal lobes following prolonged exposure to SCP-5343.

SCP-5343 was discovered in an apartment building on 8/12/2019 in Chicago, Illinois. Foundation personnel were authorized to investigate after intercepted police reports indicated that an individual living in this building was unresponsive after using a mobile app that they recently downloaded.2 Following autopsical analysis, the cause of the individuals death was determined to be anomalous in nature and Foundation personnel were granted permission to further investigate.

After SCP-5343's initial containment, a series of experiments were performed in order to verify the extent and limitations of this anomaly. These experiments along with their results can be found below.

Subject(s)
Procedure
Results

D-159823
The subject was ordered to operate SCP-5343 extensively for 6 months.
Refer to Addendum 5343-1.

D-210987
The subject operated the application for 2 days before SCP-5343 was returned to its containment.
The subject reported minor memory loss. No evidence of cerebral wounding was detected. It's been concluded that SCP-5343's anomalous abilities take approximately one week to begin manifesting.

D-658972
SCP-5343 was transferred onto a computer terminal. The subject was ordered to operate the application.
The subject was unable to access SCP-5343, even while operating a virtual machine. It has been concluded that SCP-5343 can only be accessed on mobile devices.

D-986714, D-185234
D-986714 was ordered to operate SCP-5343 for 3 days until transferring ownership to D-185234. D-185234 will use the application for an additional 3 days.
D-986714 reported signs of memory loss while D-185234 was unaffected by SCP-5343. D-185234 admitted that they did not sign out of the application, and instead continued using D-986714's session. Subject D-185234 was terminated from the experiment.

Addendum 5343-1: D-159823 was ordered to maintain a written journal at all times throughout the previously listed experiment. The recovered journal entries concerning SCP-5343 have been added below.

Access Recovered Documents 5343-1

Close Recovered Documents 5343-1

Truth be told, I don't really know where to begin with this. I guess I should explain the situation, right? Hello, my name is Ryan and currently, I'm in some facility stuck inside of a cell. It's great, especially since they gave me this journal and a phone. I don't really know why I have this phone, but the smart-looking guys said that I needed to use it whenever I could.

Going along from that, those guys also said that I had to use this app that I've never seen before. Thankfully, the app is the only one on the phone itself, so I can't possibly get it confused with something else. I'm still curious about how they deleted "Camera" and all the other apps from the phone, but I don't really care enough at this point to ask.

I don't have much else to add right now. I think tomorrow they want to watch me use the phone and stuff, I guess so they can observe how I feel about it? I don't really know, but I'll have that to look forward to. Until then, I suppose.

It's been about a day or so since my first entry. I spent some of last night and most of today trying to figure out how to use the app itself. It's really pretty, for what it is. The home-screen and the little buttons have this nice contrast to it that's really pleasing to the eye. When I first opened it, I was asked to "Subscribe now to see your personalized news feed!" I didn't exactly know what that meant, but I guess I'm a subscriber now. It's weird, it didn't ask for an email or an account when I signed up. It just accepted my request. It even knew my name, which I thought was odd at first.

What's also weird is that the first article on the app actually talked about someone I once knew, a friend of mine named Ralph. I won't get into everything, but the gist was that he got some promotion at his job and was a prominent leader in the company. I mean, it's fantastic and all that he got promoted, but how did this app know about it? Ralph wasn't a super "popular" guy, so the article really took me for a surprise. But, now that I think about it, he does work at ███████ so I guess it does make sense.

I'm probably overthinking it. I did see some other articles, about sports or whatnot, that piqued my interest. It's always nice to remember the outside world, and I know many of the other people that are locked up in here don't really have the same luxury. It was just… that article really freaked me out at first, but only because it was kinda personal. I should probably just relax, you know? I'll take some time to compose myself and probably go back to sleep.

I'm starting to see a lot of articles about myself. Which, by the way, is absolutely fucking terrifying. How do they know all of this stuff? One of the posts even talked about my life in Indy when I was in high school, but how in the fuck did they find that? I've been looking through the app more and more, just to see what kind of information it has on me.

None of these articles have author names or anything in them, so it's even more fucking terrifying. Is there someone with a camera in my room or something? I mean, I haven't found one or anything, so I don't think that's the case.

I can't stop thinking about the "what if?" What if there is someone watching me at all times? What if someone knew everything about my life? It hurts my head to even think about it.

I need to rest.

After using this app for only about 4 days, I'm starting to really figure out how fucking weird it actually is. I have read a total of 13 articles and I've counted at least 6 so far that have talked about either someone I know or someone I love. How does it know this? I mean, I've heard about websites and stuff selling your data and having ads target you or whatever but this? The amount of information it has is horrifying.

I've asked some of the doctor guys or whatever if I could stop using it, but they just keep telling me that the app is supposed to act like this. I guess I don't have much of a choice but I don't think they realize just how against the internet I really am. I didn't even have a social media account before I got locked up. Now they expect me to be okay with this?

I want to just destroy the damn thing, but I know that would only cause me trouble down the line. So, I guess I'm stuck using this freaky app or whatever until the doctors take it back. Which is annoying as hell, but nothing I can control.

Time to sleep then, I guess.

I remember hearing something about "attention engineers" or whatever that try to get people addicted to phones. My friend from a few years ago tried to convince me that Facebook and Instagram would hire these people so they could figure out how to get customers to use their stuff more. I didn't believe him (or her?) at first, but after using this phone I'm starting to feel more convinced. I haven't stopped using the device since Tuesday, and that was days ago. Of course, the fact that I'm locked up in this cell doesn't really help with "entertainment." But still, I shouldn't be acting like this, right?

Speaking of entertainment, there was this one article I read yesterday that really spooked me. The headline read, "PREDICTION: Darnell Will Fall?" It just talked about me falling down some flight of stairs or something. It didn't really say when it would happen, but that wasn't the thing that bothered me. Near the bottom of the article, it had this image of me sitting on the cot in my cell. How did this app get that photo?! I'm starting to think that whatever place I'm being held in is working with the people who made the app, and that's why there's a photo of me on there.

I can't really prove it right now, but that has to be the reason. Why else would I need to keep doing this? I think this place is a cover-up for it. There's probably attention engineers right now that are watching my every step, trying to figure out how they can convince me to keep using the app.

Fuck that, they'll need to try a little harder.

I fell down some stairs today walking to dinner.

This app is really getting to me. I've been reading more and more and it's gotten to the point now that I'm missing my family. I was so upset to see that Langely Pond was getting emptied out. My wife Laura and I, along with our daughter Jaden would go out there all the time to have fun.

I remember one time when Jaden was still a baby where some drunk idiot fell into the pond while fishing for Bluegills. It was late in the evening, and he and his buddies were chilling out by the dock near us. When it happened, Laura begged me to jump in to save him. I guess she was afraid that he'd drown or something, but I'm pretty sure the fat dude could swim fine. Anyways, I went out and helped him and he gave us like, 20 bucks. I guess it was to say "thanks" but it really didn't do much for us.

Hey, there's an article about Laura. The app says it's a spotlight, so I'm going to go read that. I'll write in here again later.

It's been about two weeks since I started writing in this journal. The app has now started writing articles about people I don't really know about. Like today, the article was talking about some girl named Felicia and how she just died from a car accident. It was really sad and all, but I don't know who that is. The article said I knew her from elementary school. I wonder if she's maybe famous now?

I'm really starting to miss my family back home. They cross my mind every day, but recently they've been the focal point of my thoughts for a while now. I hope they let me write another letter or two for Laura or little Jaden. I see their names in some of the articles and it's really nice to see things about them. On Wednesday I saw something about Jaden winning her first spelling bee at school. I also saw Laura getting promoted at her job, whatever it was. I'm happy for them both, even though they probably wish I was gone.

I'm just going to leave this here. I don't know how much else I could add.

I just want to go home now. It seems like the entire world is just… fucked. Every day I sit in here and cry about Jaden's safety. With all this talk in the news about outbreaks and school shootings, sometimes I wish I was around to teach her how to use a gun. Hell, I'd just be comfortable with seeing her go into second grade.

But I can't, not anymore. Not after everything I've done. Over time, I've learned to just accept it, even if it hurts. Even if I can make it out of prison, my past will always come to haunt me. I just wish I did more for her before I left.

I shouldn't take my frustrations out on some piece of paper. Maybe I should just lay down and go to sleep.

Night.

I woke up this morning to see that Laura apparently cheated on me with her boss.

I had a check-in with some of the doctors today. They asked me how I felt and everything. I think it was their attempt at seeing whether or not the app has affected me. I told them that I felt fine. I didn't want to mention that what's-her-face some little bitch had been cheating on me for years.

I don't know how many articles I've read. There must be hundreds though at this point. Sometimes I'll even skip lunch or dinner, just so I can catch up on my feed. Is that okay? I feel like I shouldn't do that, but I can't help it.

I'm going to catch up on the stuff I missed. I'll come back to writing later.

I don't even understand most of the topics in these articles anymore. It's like all the names and places are foreign to me. I wonder why the app would do this. It doesn't feel very "personalized" anymore, with the exception of my name popping up sometimes in the articles.

I've tried reading through some of my journal entries, but not even those help anymore. I've also been getting some migraines recently. Nothing major, but definitely a pain in the ass. I think I'll go to the doctors and ask them to give me some medication. Hopefully, that will help me.

Wold you look at that? It's been almost a week or so since I wrote in here. Guess I been busy with other things. I hope the people outside don't mind. (They wont tell my why I am in here. Did I do something wrong?)

Oh, it is time to eat. I wonder what is on the menu. I have not eaten in forever… ben busy reading and whatnot.

My head keeps hurting.

Red something about a kid graduating to sekond grade. That's kool I guess. I dont know how that got on mi feed though.

The doctors gave mi something called Tylenal. I did not know how to use it, so I asked if they could help me take it. I did not realize how difikult dificult hard it was to swallow something so small like that.

My head hurts so much. I nede help but the doctors said they allredy gave me medisin.

But I have not takin anything for it.

None of thes artikles mak sense anymoe.

wo aim i?

make the paine stap.

The subject was later found deceased in their cell. A final autopsy recovered from D-159823 reported a cerebral wound pattern that was similar to other subjects. This pattern has been deemed non-hazardous and can be observed below.

WETHANKU

WEHOPEUENJOYED. WE<3URSUPPORT.

THX4URCONTRBUTION

TOUNSUBSCRBEPLZTXT:

███-███-████

- WESTHEADMEDIA

Footnotes

1. This includes areas where the subject is completely alone.

2. Individual was identified as Malcolm Stevenson, a freelance mobile application developer with possible connections into several Groups of Interest (GoI's) including "Are We Cool Yet?", Gamers Against Weed, and had even possessed an active account on the popular forum website Parawatch.net.