Facebook was tagging some users as ‘interested in treason’

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 – guess who media said would misuse data?

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It has emerged that Facebook used a “treason” tag to mark some of its users. When Danish media reported that FB had since discontinued the label, it also decided to single out only ‘evil Russians’ as possible abusers of the data.

The US social media giant effectively labeled tens of thousands of people all over the world as “interested in treason” for the sake of … advertising, Danish public-service broadcaster Danmarks Radio (DR) reported on Wednesday, explaining that “treason” was one of the tags used by Facebook’s automatic algorithm to identify, for advertisers, its users’ interests.

It is unclear how long the social network had been using the controversial tag as well as how many users were affected by it. However, when the Danish media contacted Facebook to draw its attention to the disturbing discovery, the US company promptly admitted that the tag was “troubling” and proudly said as it already deleted it a week ago.

“‘Treason’ was included as a category given its historical significance,” Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne told the media, in an apparent attempt to explain why the bizarre tag was used in the first place. He went on to say that Facebook “removed it as an interest category,” given that “it is an illegal activity.”



These arguments still apparently seemed unconvincing to DR as it rhetorically asked, in its report on the issue, what purpose this tag could possibly have in advertising. However, the Danish media was in fact much more preoccupied by an entirely different matter – namely by the alleged misuse of this tag by the West’s almost traditional boogeyman – Russia.

‘Evil FSB watches over you’

When Danish journalists stumbled upon this awkward Facebook practice, the first thing they thought about was Russia. The DR piece on the issue does not mention any nation except for the Russians, even though Facebook admitted that the tagging practice was worldwide. However, they took the trouble of counting exactly how many Russians using Facebook were labeled as “interested in treason” only to warn readers that as many as some 65,000 people could be subjected to “persecution” by Russian security services as a result of the social media giant’s callous actions.

In contrast with the usual MSM narrative, which prefers to see Russian meddling virtually everywhere, especially when it comes to internet and social networks, this particular Danish coverage ironically focused on how the groundless “treason” label was dangerous and misguided because … it could be used by the Russian government to identify potential turncoats and crack down on its own people.

DR also could not help but yield to temptation and remind its readers about the allegedly extremely poor situation with human rights in Russia against the background of the 2018 World Cup, hosted by this nation, which has been considered a success so far.

“These methods, which Facebook has probably unwittingly given the Russian authorities, make it much easier for governmental agencies to systematically track persons marked as potential traitors,” Mette Skak, an associate professor at the Aarhus University, who is also identified as a “Russia expert” by DR, told the Danish media outlet.

The tools that Facebook unintentionally provided the scary Russian security services with might even lead to the rise of “post-modern Stalinism,” Skak warned, in another outburst of scaremongering.

The DR piece also goes to great lengths to explain how the Russian security services can use the controversial tag to identify and eventually track down any affected person. However, it admits that it actually has no evidence of the Russian authorities ever using Facebook for such purposes.

READ MORE: It’s not a conspiracy theory – your phone really is watching you, research finds

At the same time, it cited some experts who said they have “no doubts” that an intelligence service is probably already doing “something like this” and would be definitely “keen on” exploiting Facebook’s weakness to snoop on its own people.

Notably, any other security and intelligence services, including those that were indeed caught spying on their own citizens as well as on people in other countries, were conveniently left out of the account in the DR article, as well as other media reports on the issue, which also preferred to mention only Russia. After all, it is only “scary Russia” that Western people should be worried about.

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9 COMMENTS

  1. It’s a little confusing, is it “interested in treason” as in “interested in history” or “interested in committing treason” ,… ? Either way, this is small potatoes. The more data is able to be processed at higher speeds in bulk, the more minutia plays a role. As data sets begin to congeal, and form discernible patterns, surprises are popping up. These “surprises” will be most valuable when only a few people know about them. They will be coveted and sold to the highest bidder. When the sets form discernible patterns that correlate with calendrics, they become predictive tools. The clearer these predictive tools become, the more in question free will becomes. The more free will comes into question, the less guilt is felt by those who use the data to direct or guide folks along a path, that a few people deem to be beneficial to themselves or simply their opinion.

    • A small analogy,.. if every 3rd Thursday, Bob buys a certain brand of shaving cream, and the data set shows a correlation (with unknown reason) with 7000 other people buying certain things on that day, the data has marketing value. So, the ads of the competing product are run on Wednesday, but have no affect. Again (for unknown reason) ,.. so this is done with other days or products until bam, it works like a charm. Thus, a certain time period is identified as having greatest potential for “mind change”. That data is highly coveted, and the public has no idea. The higher forms of astrology already operate this way with the financial markets.
      The gap is closing, on the opportunity for the public to get up to speed. When the data sets reach a certain tipping point, AI has the advantage, and free will becomes questionable, for those who operate in cyber, and for those who don’t, a discernible change in human consciousness will also effect them as well. It is like waves.

    • The simplest start, learn the 20 days. It is very ancient and very noticeable. Just search all the potential sources. Tesla was born on the day of Lightening and energy from waterfalls. The 36 decans are also basic important awareness. It is simple, like the Thailand boys soccer team, named the wild Boars, entered the cave, on the first day of Boar decan. Filtration of the data will clog if dogma is present. As we see with several ops, those with closely held religious believes are the easiest to direct and will be the first target of almost any agenda. This is why I say, religion is a national security threat. More so now than ever. We can see it.

    • The primary users of calendrics on a Global scale have no equivalence with religion, who is indisputably the world authority of setting time, and behavior according to obfuscated use of astrology. Hands down. Horology is the tip of the pyramid of every religious study. It is the essence of theology. Anyone who claims otherwise is either ignorant or lying.
      Then there are several “worlds” of usage, One is financial, where a handy astrologer or horologist, is coveted and passed around among elites. These also combine with intuitive “empaths”, they come and go as mistakes are more highly scrutinized than any doctor. Then there are the independents, who are clinging to ancient knowledge and trying to preserve it, and they are ostracized in society. The language and communications or publishings they produce are foreign to dogmatic peoples and hardly understood even on a basic level.
      Then there are the quacks, as in any field of study, who seek self empowerment and praise for predictive abilities which hardly exist, and unwittingly provide further ammunition for those who wish to demonize the trade, in spite of the fact, most priests of any religion are doing the same thing.

    • Well, I can only speak to the Bible as a reference to older time keeping methods. I never say the people are the problem, but the book cannot be two things at once. It is not either catholic or Hebrew text, or structure, or content. It has been modified by placing names and insinuating origins that do not exist. Everyone who studies the stuff knows Jesus is Horus. It is not a secret per say in the Vatican either. It is that which is not mentioned. The rational for this quiet attitude as opposed to just telling the truth, is nearly identical to why they don’t investigate 9/11. But, no, if someone tells me Jesus or Moses were real people, they are not actual theologians or informed about the non-historical nature of the text. This includes many Phd level professors and Bishops. It is a stolen book, that certainly popped up after Alexandria burned. The whole thing is Pious Fraud. So, the original hijacking was before Christianity started. Curiously, just before. Curiously followed by invasion and destruction two of the cultures that had the information. It will surface because they did a horrible job and it is easily discernible. The most important thing is, the knowledge in it, is about to be used against the people who believe the historical part. big time. Which is harder to believe, Jesus is the son of God and just happens to be a jew, or someone stole a book and changed it ?

    • When civilization reaches the point where “control of direction of masses’ becomes a commodity in a capitalist system,… then the most important factor to fight it, is the elimination of dogma. The controllers will not be guided by dogma, the controlled will. And if you say we are already controlled, then I would say, you haven’t seen anything yet. As a single operator, using this information, much is possible. Dogma must be squelched to maintain freedom. Knowledge of time, is the key to the prison. There are already a couple countries that know this. My heart goes out to those with firmly held beliefs, but AI, means the gas pedal is about to be pushed to the floor. The band aid is coming off, do you want it fast, or would you like the slow tearing ?

    • Johnny America – the 1%? Isn’t that what “they” want us to think, since most people know someone in the 1% (after all there are 75,500,000 of them)? And the 1% contains a lot of people who just happened to born to the right parents to get ridiculously high paying jobs without necessarily being personally evil (or at worst the evil of ignoring how privileged they have been).

      The real problem of the super-rich who want to cause misery to others is more the 0.00001%, or possibly even only 0.000001%.

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