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Neighboring country interfered information space of Azerbaijan in the form of manipulation

31 January 2025 17:33 (UTC +04:00)

The Temporary Commission against Foreign Interference and Hybrid Threats of the Milli Majlis (Parliament) of the Republic of Azerbaijan, within the framework of its powers, regularly conducts analyses of hybrid threats, the Press and Public Relations Department of the Milli Majlis told APA.

It was noted that during the investigations, it was revealed that one of the neighboring countries had conducted coordinated interventions in the information space of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the form of disinformation and information manipulation. It was determined that manipulative and coordinated propaganda was carried out mainly through social media platforms and in various languages, including the creation of news-type resources in the Azerbaijani language to directly influence public opinion. The campaign also used the method of creating "twins" of some pages operating in the Azerbaijani segment of the Facebook platform. Pages operating under the names such as“Nə var, Nə yox?” (What is up?), “Bizim Azərbaycan” (Our Azerbaijan), “Azerbaijan Daily”, “Xəbərlər və Hadisələr” (News and Events), “Yerli media” (Local Media)and others could be an example: "For example, during the analysis of the mass media campaign conducted on Internet resources regarding the accident of the Embraer 190 passenger aircraft belonging to Azerbaijan Airlines Closed Joint Stock Company on the Baku-Grozny (Russian Federation) flight, it was discovered that misleading theses regarding the cause of the incident that did not reflect reality were being massively disseminated in clusters by "news" resources and Internet bots (Note: programs that perform automated tasks).

Another tactic is the illegal cyber activities carried out on behalf of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan using "deepfake" (Note: audiovisual content created with artificial intelligence tools) and imitation technologies to create confusion and distrust among citizens of the Republic of Azerbaijan regarding the plane crash.

The Temporary Commission against Foreign Interference and Hybrid Threats calls on our citizens to be vigilant and periodically disseminates information on the intervention tactics, forms of propaganda and methods used in disinformation campaigns against our country to protect our society from targeted and harmful information.

Our Commission, together with relevant state agencies, will further increase its activities to prevent such information operations."