Azerbaijan’s digital war on France

By Paul Vartan Sookiasian

Civilnet

A new report from the French government body for defence against foreign digital interference details what it describes as attempts by Azerbaijani social media bot armies to “undermine France’s territorial integrity in overseas territories.” The in-depth study by VIGINUM into the fraudulent activity is centered on the Baku Initiative Group (BIG), founded as an NGO in June 2023 in Baku by the Azerbaiajni think tank the AIR Center.

Despite purporting to be independent, the Air Center chaired by Dr. Farid Shafiyev was created in 2019 by the decree of President Ilham Aliyev. According to BIG’s non-descript mission statement, it “encourages mutual interest [and] international cooperation within international norms and principles.”

However its statements and social media posts are singularly focused on vilifying France and promoting what it calls “decolonization.” VIGINUM contends that BIG “deliberately seeks to use the political and economic situation in France’s overseas departments… for malicious purposes” and that it “aims to attempt to undermine France’s territorial integrity in overseas territories, by exploiting independence movements and ideas.”

The report analyzed a cluster of 423 fake accounts linked to Azerbaijan that repeatedly tweeted copy and pasted messages supporting Azerbaijani government talking points and promotion of BIG’s messaging. It notes there was a precipitous decline in the spam activity on an Azerbaijani state holiday compared to working days. VIGINUM says it detected links between the account and members of Aliyev’s Young Azerbaijan party (YAP). BIG also noted that Aliyev supports its efforts.

BIG’s first decolonization conference in July 2023 was promoted in tweets on the social platform X more than 7000 times by 895 users in one day. One thousand of those posts were made within just ten minutes, characteristic of automated behavior, while a single account posted about it 73 times in a row. Similar activity was observed every time BIG held a new conference in the months that followed.

The same cluster promoting BIG also targeted members of the European Parliament attacking them as being members of the Armenian lobby, a common narrative in Azerbaijani pro-government media outlets. Almost all accounts in the cluster shifted in early February to identical tweets glorifying Aliyev in the run up to the snap presidential election that saw him allegedly secure 92% of the vote.

VIGINUM contends that this artificial amplification activity took on a more insidious nature in May this year when riots began in the French territory of New Caledonia. Most accounts from the identified cluster “directly participated in the information campaign disseminating blatantly inaccurate or misleading content – video or photo montages – accusing law enforcement forces of killing independence demonstrators.”

The swarm of Azerbaijani-linked accounts entered the fray by falsely accusing French police in the territory of carrying out a campaign of murder against the native Kamak people. At least thirteen people were killed in the unrest, including police, and many more died due to causes indirectly related to it. Demonstrators on the island marched holding Azerbaijani flags and photos of Aliyev. French Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin accused Azerbaijan of “interference” in the politics of New Caledonia: “This isn’t a fantasy… I regret that some of the separatists have made a deal with Azerbaijan.”

For its part, BIG issued a press release during the riots in New Caledonia on May 16th “calling on the international community not to turn a blind eye to this disgraceful neo-colonial practice that leads to the marginalization of the people of Kanaky.”

In the wake of the New Caledonian disinformation campaign, many of the conspirator accounts were suspended. The report notes that at the same time, BIG’s communication stance evolved as it began signing memoranda of understanding with independence parties in French overseas territories and pan-African influencers in an “attempt to strengthen… the dissemination of its narratives against France.”

The matter gained headlines again in November when as host of the UN global climate summit COP29, Aliyev used the platform to claim France is oppressing its overseas territories and linking it to climate change. He also added on the Netherlands as another colonial oppressor in the wake of the Dutch parliament passing resolutions that called for the protection of Armenian cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh and the release of Armenian political prisoners held in Baku.

BIG’s executive director Abbas Abbasov took credit this month for “positive results in addressing the issues of New Caledonia,” going as far as to say the world had not even been aware of some of these territories’ existence before BIG came along. He added that many of these regions are now also entering an “active phase of resistance against colonization”.

According to the French report, despite how widely and intensively BIG promoted itself on digital platforms, it did not achieve the intended result. However, with Aliyev using part of his interview with a Russian state-owned news agency last week to attack France yet again citing the overseas territories, it appears Azerbaijan is not done trying.