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We removed 589 Facebook accounts, 7,665 Pages and 437 accounts on
Instagram that were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior. This network
originated in Azerbaijan and focused primarily on domestic audiences.
While the individuals behind this activity used fake accounts — some of which had been
already detected and disabled by our automated systems, they primarily relied on authentic
accounts to create Pages designed to look like user profiles — using false names and stock
images — to comment and artificially boost the popularity of particular pro-government
content. This network appeared to engage individuals in Azerbaijan to manage Pages with the
sole purpose of leaving supportive and critical commentary on Pages of international and local
media, public figures including opposition, and the ruling party of Azerbaijan, to create a
perception of wide-spread criticism of some views and wide-spread support of others. From
what we’ve seen, it appears that most of the engagement these comments received were from
within this network of Pages themselves. Our analysis shows that these comments were
posted in what appears to be regular shifts during working hours in Azerbaijan on weekdays.
This network posted primarily in Azerbaijani, and also in Russian and English. Their comments
frequently touched on local and regional news and events, politics, government policies,
tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Armenia’s actions during past escalations in
Nagorno-Karabakh, praise of president Ilham Aliev and the New Azerbaijani Party, criticism of
the opposition party and leaders accusing them of treason, and denials of human rights abuse
allegations in Azerbaijan.
We identified this network through an internal investigation into suspected fake engagement
activity in the region. Our investigation linked this activity to the Youth Union of New
Azerbaijani Party.
OCTOBER 2020 COORDINATED INAUTHENTIC BEHAVIOR REPORT