Zuckerberg strikes at the "factories" of trolls

"This Russian agency has repeatedly acted deceitfully and tried to manipulate people in the US, Europe and Russia. We do not want them to be present on Facebook anywhere in the world," Zuckerberg explained to reporters.

In his statement, he. suddenly mentioned Azerbaijan. The Internet research agency has created a network of "hundreds fake accounts" for interfering in the election of the US President in 2016 and manipulating information aimed at Russian-speaking residents of Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan," Zuckerberg added at the time.

At about the same time, Azerbaijani journalists and bloggers Einulla Fatullayev, Bahram Batdyev, Yana Madatova, Kyanan Guluzade and others began reporting about daily, three-day and weekly blockades, which are devoted to both domestic political events in Azerbaijan and coverage of the Azerbaijani position around Azerbaijan conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. On March 16 in the Yerevan, obviously anti-Azerbaijani newspaper Golos Armenii, it was reported about the mass blocking of Armenian activists of the Facebook network. It was noted that the temporary ban concerns mainly users who write on topics related to Azerbaijan, using words that the FB robots consider as a manifestation of the language of hatred.

It is clear that Zuckerberg launched a robot program to clean up the words used by Internet activists of Azerbaijan and Armenia in a mutual propaganda war. Finding such a word, the robot automatically bans the user. Antidote to the new circumstance was not found. "We need a structure that would establish communications with the world's leading Internet resources and through dialogue could protect the interests of Azerbaijan," said Farid Kazimov, an expert in information and communication technologies.

Facebook assumed the responsibilities of the OSCE Minsk Group, and began to ban those who, according to his robot's ideas, are stirring up hostility between the two South Caucasian republics. According to the Facebook report, remote account subscribers around the world had about a million people, of which 29,000 in Azerbaijan. On March 15 there was another statement from Washington: the US Treasury Department extended the penalty measures to 19 Russians and 5 organizations. Restrictions were made, in particular, by the Russian special services of the FSB and the Chief Intelligence Department, as well as by the Internet Research Agency, known as the "troll factory".

Can anti-Kremlin sanctions on the Internet imposed by the US spread to Azerbaijani politicians and oligarchs (some politicians and oligarchs at the same time) working closely with the Kremlin? Moreover, this Russian-Azerbaijani connection can be traced not only to the regular visits to Baku of the Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, Nikolai Patrushev, but also to the identity of Azerbaijani Jeyhun Aslanov, who led (and probably continues to lead) the anti-American department in the same Russian Agency ("troll factory" ). He is one of 13 Russians, whom US special prosecutor Robert Muller accused of interfering in the American elections.

There are reasons to think so, because this year in the Azerbaijani segment of Facebook much is said about trolls working for the power of Azerbaijan, and they expose them. The emergence of the new concept of "political trolling" for Azerbaijanis is explained by the press secretary of the opposition emigrant movement AND Gulli Cangirova by the inability of the authorities to close protest voices that sounded from abroad in the Azerbaijani language.

"Openly dissatisfied with the regime win on the Internet, as in social networks there is freedom of speech, therefore the texts and pictures distributed by the trolls look poor," Cangirova writes. She cited the example of an Internet attack by trolls against opposition activist Ordukhan and other Internet activists who criticize I. Aliyev's power.

A forum participant Azer Ismail reports that the Azerbaijani trolls not only send stupid statuses, they also complain to the Facebook administration, issuing texts of the political opposition for speaking out on topics banned in the network (terrorism, pedophilia ...), and Facebook automatically bans the accounts of the opposition, not having understood a mendacious complaint. With each passing day, the number of banned forumers, who are unwelcome to the Azerbaijani authorities, is increasing.

Happenings in social networks show that in Azerbaijan (obviously, in Baku) there is a "troll factory", which is faced with the task of banning and neutralizing the accounts of critics of power. It is not necessary that the Azerbaijani "factory" looks like an NGO close to the authorities with a number of computers, behind which there are youth activists of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party. Nowadays there are successfully operating network "factories"

Once again, let us recall compatriot Jeyhun Aslanov and then it will be easier to imagine the Russian-Azerbaijani cooperation in controlling and blocking political oppositionists disliked by Moscow and Baku. The cooperation between the two capitals has been in the information sphere for many years: branches of two Russian news agencies, "Sputnik" and "Interfax", are carrying out political orders of the Kremlin in Baku. What prevents Nikolai Patrushev and main propagandist, Ali Hasanov, from building the same partnership in the field of trolling against his political opponents, and even having an experienced specialist in the person of Jeyhun Aslanov?

Mark Zuckerberg created a successful system of blocking accounts, from which the network receives the so-called "language of hostility." The author of Facebook warns about the imminent appearance of a special update that allows to check whether the user of the social network is a subscriber of the account controlled by the "factory" of trolls.

The US remains the world's leading force, combating totalitarian thinking in the world. Starting to clean Facebook from totalitarian trolls, Zuckerberg did not hide the cooperation with the US Congress, where he will report on the situation with the trolls on April 10. The Azerbaijani colleagues of the Russian Agency for Internet Research (possibly managed by J.Aslanov) can get to the attention of Zuckerberg and Congress, because they are engaged in nothing more than the strengthening of totalitarian thinking in Azerbaijan.