SCP Foundation

In the interest of preserving the health of vital personnel, no staff member of level 3 or above is to learn URQ-5008-J.

Much of this review is going to be dedicated to tone and formatting. While there are certainly ways to hint as to the punchline, you don't have to sacrifice an article's tone to do so, as it appears you were trying to do. I recommend writing every other part of your article under the assumption that the punchline is any other cognitohazardous piece of information. For example, this would be,

"The existence of URQ-5008-J is to be hidden from (personnel). Personnel who learn both the existence and content of URQ-5008-J are to be immediately bound and gagged until administered, short-term amnestics take effect."

In this form, URQ-5008-J is still presented as a nebulous, ominous entity and its primary target(the mouth I presume) is disabled in the middle of other, general precautions. This serves the build-up, punch-line and read-back nicely, in my opinion.

Personnel affected by URQ-5008-J are to be closely monitored in case they show signs of the anomaly's primary effect.

I believe this could be improved if you treat affected personnel as though they're infectious. Since we know the primary effect is shoving a light bulb in one's mouth, this feels a bit blatant during the read-back. Also, as a straight SCP, this also needs to be expanded on. What happens if a subject does display signs of being affected? For this part, I would recommend making it sound as though the Foundation is deathly concerned about 'infected' personnel getting out of quarantine when in actuality they're trying to keep them from shoving lightbulbs into their mouths. For example, keeping all light sources away from affected subjects can come across initially as indicative of a photosensitive anomaly, but will be clear after the punch-line.

Due to the nature of ideas, worldwide containment of URQ-5008-J has been deemed impossible.

This line I'm not a fan of. As soon as I read this, I knew the joke was an idea of some sort. And on the read-back, this sentence feels more out of place. Coupled with the risk involved in stating an entity is un-containable, I would recommend entirely reworking this.

I would recommend either removing this entirely and making the description pull the lion's share of the weight in this bait-and-switch, or by padding this out in a way consistent with Foundation protocols. For example, you could organize an entire information campaign where automated systems trawl the internet waiting for this cognitohazard to appear before responding as a 'medical professional' urging civilians to not listen. I'll leave this sentence up to you.

I feel as though the special containment procedures are where you have to really build up the dread. Once you get into the description, it's all about describing the effects of your punch-line in a round-about, yet seemingly efficient manner so most of the dramatization has to happen here. If you end up increasing the length, I would recommend prioritizing this part first.

I'm conflicted about the description's length. Part of me likes how short it is, while another part wishes that it was much longer to further contrast the ridiculousness between the article and the punchline. However, what I am sure about is that the description suffers from lack of tone and a rather awkward description.

URQ-5008-J is a piece of information or “fun fact” about a common household object. Upon learning URQ-5008-J, the affected subject will get a nearly insurmountable urge to harm themselves with said object.

Clinical tone is notably absent here. Even though this is a joke article, I would recommend against slacking on tone since a hyper-rigid tone can only serve to make the comical punchline more funny. For this part, I would recommend something along the lines of

"URQ-5008-J is a virulent cognitohazard, capable of being transmitted through most forms of communication. Upon being exposed to it, affected individuals ability to perceive certain light sources normally will become severely compromised. Affected individuals will, upon being exposed to specific light sources, lose their capacity to make rational decisions and become fixated on behavior that consistently leads to both physical harm to themselves and to other materials."

This is a slightly longer way of stating what your sentence did. I admit that my version is a little rusty and I would recommend work-shopping your own version if you want to adopt this recommendation, but I do feel as though this makes your anomaly sound much more malevolent and mysterious than it actually is. As my high school biology stated, "anything can be made to sound scary with science."

URQ-5008-J was discovered when multiple members of staff at Site-17 (notably Doctor ████████, Researcher ██, and O5-██) were admitted to the site infirmary with severe lacerations around and within their mouth, throat, and face.

I recommend giving your entire description the treatment I gave to the previous portion. However, I would just point out that Doctor ███ and Researcher ██ are kind of redundant. Most readers expect researchers to be called Dr. anyway so doing this felt really awkward. I would recommend just staying consistent. Having an O5 fall victim might be pushing the envelope a little bit. I would recommend keeping this below the site administration level at most.

At the moment it is unknown whether URQ-5008-J’s cognitohazardous properties originate from its own anomalousness, or whether its effect is caused by human instinct.

I would honestly just recommend leaving this out. I didn't understand it when I first read it, and it doesn't add much in consecutive reads. Other SCPs don't really have speculation about the source of anomalous traits and I think you can get away with just removing this.

This isn't really about the punchline. It's about the text making up the collapsible. I honestly think you should drop the "level 2 or below" access. In fact, I'd recommend doubling down on the ominous aura you've been creating and instead limit this to senior research personnel and only after they've been given the appropriate mental hardening drugs/ counter-cognithoazard/ restraints/etc.