---
title: 'Keep It Dark: Careless Talk Costs Lives'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/keep-it-dark-careless-talk-costs-lives-1939/
description: A giant black hand lifts a dark curtain to uncover a convoy of ships at sea, under the red words 'Keep it dark' and 'Careless talk costs lives'.
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Keep It Dark: Careless Talk Costs Lives

[![Keep It Dark: Careless Talk Costs Lives, 1939 UK poster: A giant black hand lifts a dark curtain to uncover a convoy of ships](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/keep-it-dark-careless-talk-costs-lives-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/keep-it-dark-careless-talk-costs-lives-1939.jpg)

# Keep It Dark: Careless Talk Costs Lives

A giant black hand lifts a dark curtain to uncover a convoy of ships at sea, under the red words 'Keep it dark' and 'Careless talk costs lives'. The picture makes the threat concrete (ships exposed) and the headline states the cost in lives, a fear appeal attached to a request for silence.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
KEEP IT DARK
Careless Talk costs Lives
Maurice Bennett
PRINTED FOR H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE BY MULTI MACHINE PLATES LTD. LONDON E.C.4 51-3196
```

[← Keep Calm and Carry On](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/keep-calm-and-carry-on-1939/) ['Keep it under your hat!' Careless Talk Costs Lives →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/keep-it-under-your-hat-careless-talk-1939/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)