Facebook removes another deceptive Azerbaijani network

PanARMENIAN.Net - Facebook has identified and removed one more deceptive Azerbaijani network, this time comprised of 124 Facebook accounts, 15 Pages, six Groups and 30 Instagram accounts, associated with the country's Defense Ministry.

The social media platform said in a blog post Thursday, May 6 that the campaign removed targeted primarily Azerbaijan and to a much lesser extent Armenia.

"We found this network as a result of our internal investigation following routine enforcement against two third-party Android applications — Postegro and Nunu, which misled people into giving away their Instagram credentials. It appears that this activity was separate and unrelated to the same actors’ coordinated inauthentic behavior," Facebook said.

"Our [Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior] investigation found links to individuals associated with the Defense Ministry of Azerbaijan."

In October 2020, Facebook removed anoter Azerbaijani network of 589 accounts, 7,906 Pages and 447 accounts on Instagram that were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior. The 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.