29 October 2024 - London, United Kingdom – A network of 71 suspicious accounts on X (formerly Twitter) has been promoting the official messaging of Azerbaijan’s government, distracting from criticism of its human rights and greenwashing records, according to a Global Witness investigation released today.
Recently, the conversation on X around official COP29 hashtags #COP29 and #COP29Azerbaijan changed significantly.
Of content posted in July, seven of the top 10 most engaged posts were critical of Azerbaijan’s role in the conflict with Armenia including mentions of #freearmenianhostages and #stopgreenwashgenocide. Of content posted in September, all of the top 10 most engaged posts were from the official COP Azerbaijan account.
This change appears to be driven by an influx of suspicious accounts that share striking similarities. We believe this to be a coordinated influence campaign artificially inflating the reach of Azeri government-aligned messaging.
The 71 suspicious accounts share a host of common characteristics:
- The same look: All 71 have images of nature, such as flowers or trees, in their profile and/or banner pictures (see Fig 1 in notes to editors).
- The exact same look: Seven of the accounts share precisely the same profile pictures and/or banner picture as another (see Fig 2 in notes to editors).
- They are new: 93% of these accounts were set up within the last six months.
- They amplify the same content: Mostly, the accounts just retweet rather than post their own content. In September, 70% of those retweets were of the official Azerbaijan COP account or other official Azerbaijan government, party or politician accounts.
- They use the same hashtags: The accounts often don’t add any commentary of their own to their retweets other than hashtags. More than half of their posts in September used #COP29 or #COP29Azerbaijan. In 10% of their posts, they also used the nationalistic #KarabakhIsAzerbaijan hashtag.
Beyond striking similarities in their appearance, their activity also appears to be coordinated.
- They are connected to each other: Over half of the accounts are connected to six or more of the other accounts. 87% are connected to at least one other account in the network.
- They sometimes post in a coordinated, sequential fashion: As shown in the graph below, the timing of their posts suggests that some accounts could be controlled by one person who logs on to each account in turn.
Ava Lee, Digital Threats Campaign Lead at Global Witness, said:
“Azerbaijan is days away from hosting the most important climate event of the year. It's vitally important than there is space online for a real discussion about what we can expect from a petrostate host. Yet a quick search on the main COP29 hashtags unearthed a network of seemingly inauthentic accounts elevating the Government line. They are replacing rightful criticism with flowery positivity."
“This shows X’s consistent underinvestment in moderation efforts online. The platform has a responsibility to facilitate authentic debate, rather than relying on outside investigators to do its Trust and Safety work.”
The network we uncovered appears to be just the tip of the iceberg. We also found a further 111 suspicious accounts that do not share the striking nature images of the initial network, but do share other characteristics:
- They are new: All 111 accounts were set up within the last five months,
- They do little but amplify Azerbaijan’s official message on COP29: 70% of their retweets were of the official Azerbaijan COP account or other official Azerbaijan government, party or politician accounts
- They use the same hashtags: More than half of their posts in September used #COP29 or #COP29Azerbaijan.
Social media platforms including X have become the primary source of information for vast swathes of the global population, making the protection of healthy and authentic debate crucial. Since October 2022, X has significantly reduced its content moderation efforts, and the size of teams tasked with uncovering platform manipulation.
X prohibits users from using their platform “in a manner intended to artificially amplify or suppress information.” We wrote to X asking them to investigate these accounts. The platform confirmed our suspicions and said that it had taken action against the majority of them. We are calling on X to state publicly who is behind these accounts.
The decision to hand the COP29 presidency to Azerbaijan has been criticised by civil society groups and climate activists. Azerbaijan’s economy relies heavily on income from fossil fuel production. Two thirds of its government revenue come from oil and gas production. According to a recent Global Witness analysis Azerbaijan will increase its gas production by a third within the next decade. Over this period, the projected gas produced from Azeri sources is estimated to emit 781 million tonnes of carbon dioxide – more than twice the annual carbon emissions of the UK.
We also wrote to the Azerbaijan government and the COP29 organisers to give them the opportunity to comment on our findings and received no reply.
