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AZERBAIJANI-ARMENIAN MEDIA WAGE VIRTUAL WAR
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #749
Aug 21 2014
Heightened tensions lead to online battles, disinformation and website
takedowns.
By Gohar Abrahamyan - Caucasus
The recent spike in violence around Nagorny Karabakh has been
accompanied by an upsurge in information warfare as hackers attack
websites in both Armenia and Azerbaijan and news outlets are recruited
to spread disinformation.
The web attacks came as localised clashes - and casualties - increased
on the front line around Armenian-controlled Karabakh and on the
border between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Both sides have expressed
concern about breaches of the 1994 ceasefire that ended the Karabakh
war but has never led to a formal peace deal. (See Azeri-Armenian
Conflict Fears as Death Toll Rises.)
"From July 27, when it was already clear that the situation was
evolving further and that there was a chance of war, it appears that
the media changed and went to war," said Laura Baghdasaryan, director
of the Region think tank in Yerevan. "All other issues faded into the
background, and everyone discussed what was happening on the border."
Edgar Chraghyan of Cyber Gates, an internet security company in
Armenia, told IWPR that says that hackers in Azerbaijan disabled 15
Armenian websites over a period of two weeks. Armenians took down 13
sites in Azerbaijan, he added.
In one attack, on the Russian-language section of the news site
www.tert.am, Azerbaijan hackers replaced an August 2 interview with
Senor Hasratyan, a spokesman for the Karabakh defence ministry, with
a press release purporting to be from the Armenian defence ministry.
Hasratyan's statement that his forces were in full control of
Karabakh's airspace were removed and in its place there appeared a
fictitious news story of an artillery bombardment said to have killed
20 Armenian soldiers and injured 26. In fact, one died and one other
was injured.
The website published a correction within minutes, but Azerbaijani
news outlets had already picked up the fake report, and subsequently
interpreted its removal as evidence of Armenian censorship.
David Alaverdyan, editor of the Mediamax news agency and a journalism
lecturer at Yerevan State University, said the key aim for a government
fighting an information war was to ensure that its point of view
drowned out all opposing opinions.
He said that within Armenia, the defence ministry had more or less
achieved that goal, and that its Azerbaijani counterpart, too, had
been successful in dominating the narrative in that country.
To illustrate the point, Alaverdyan cited the case of an Armenian
national who died after crossing the border into Azerbaijan. At first,
Azerbaijan described the man as a civilian, but then changed tack
and followed the defence ministry's lead, calling him a saboteur.
A number of websites aimed at Armenians but backed by Azerbaijan
published reports of the death of Armenian troops that turned out
to be false. Given the source, most Armenians would realise this was
propaganda, but they are more liable to believe stories that appear
in the Russian media.
On August 12, when tensions had somewhat subsided following a meeting
between Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan and his Azerbaijani
counterpart Ilham Aliyev, chaired by President Vladimir Putin in
Sochi, the Russian website www.politrus.com ran a story claiming that
Azerbaijan planned to "buy" Karabakh for five billion US dollars.
"This is clear sabotage by Russian media," said Baghdasaryan. "The
article did not carry the usual byline, and just said it was by
'politrus'. [Azerbaijani website] www.haqqin.az then reprinted the
article, and it spread."
On August 2, the Russian news agency Regnum published a story claiming
that Azerbaijani armoured vehicles were advancing along the whole
front line, and carried three photographs showing dozens of tanks.
Many Armenians panicked, believing the photographs were of tanks
actually deployed in the field, whereas in fact they were taken last
year when Russia delivered a shipment of armoured vehicles to Baku.
Samvel Martirosyan, who lectures on blogging and new media at Yerevan
State University, says Armenian journalists have grown increasingly
careful about sifting fact from fiction.
"An interesting thing has happened to the Armenian media, which are
normally very poor at checking information. They have always happily
accepted disinformation spread by Azerbaijan. But this time they have
orientated themselves very quickly, and most of the media have been
very careful about spreading information," he said.
Gohar Abrahamyan is a correspondent for www.ArmeniaNow.com in Armenia.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/azerbaijani-armenian-media-wage-virtual-war
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #749
Aug 21 2014
Heightened tensions lead to online battles, disinformation and website
takedowns.
By Gohar Abrahamyan - Caucasus
The recent spike in violence around Nagorny Karabakh has been
accompanied by an upsurge in information warfare as hackers attack
websites in both Armenia and Azerbaijan and news outlets are recruited
to spread disinformation.
The web attacks came as localised clashes - and casualties - increased
on the front line around Armenian-controlled Karabakh and on the
border between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Both sides have expressed
concern about breaches of the 1994 ceasefire that ended the Karabakh
war but has never led to a formal peace deal. (See Azeri-Armenian
Conflict Fears as Death Toll Rises.)
"From July 27, when it was already clear that the situation was
evolving further and that there was a chance of war, it appears that
the media changed and went to war," said Laura Baghdasaryan, director
of the Region think tank in Yerevan. "All other issues faded into the
background, and everyone discussed what was happening on the border."
Edgar Chraghyan of Cyber Gates, an internet security company in
Armenia, told IWPR that says that hackers in Azerbaijan disabled 15
Armenian websites over a period of two weeks. Armenians took down 13
sites in Azerbaijan, he added.
In one attack, on the Russian-language section of the news site
www.tert.am, Azerbaijan hackers replaced an August 2 interview with
Senor Hasratyan, a spokesman for the Karabakh defence ministry, with
a press release purporting to be from the Armenian defence ministry.
Hasratyan's statement that his forces were in full control of
Karabakh's airspace were removed and in its place there appeared a
fictitious news story of an artillery bombardment said to have killed
20 Armenian soldiers and injured 26. In fact, one died and one other
was injured.
The website published a correction within minutes, but Azerbaijani
news outlets had already picked up the fake report, and subsequently
interpreted its removal as evidence of Armenian censorship.
David Alaverdyan, editor of the Mediamax news agency and a journalism
lecturer at Yerevan State University, said the key aim for a government
fighting an information war was to ensure that its point of view
drowned out all opposing opinions.
He said that within Armenia, the defence ministry had more or less
achieved that goal, and that its Azerbaijani counterpart, too, had
been successful in dominating the narrative in that country.
To illustrate the point, Alaverdyan cited the case of an Armenian
national who died after crossing the border into Azerbaijan. At first,
Azerbaijan described the man as a civilian, but then changed tack
and followed the defence ministry's lead, calling him a saboteur.
A number of websites aimed at Armenians but backed by Azerbaijan
published reports of the death of Armenian troops that turned out
to be false. Given the source, most Armenians would realise this was
propaganda, but they are more liable to believe stories that appear
in the Russian media.
On August 12, when tensions had somewhat subsided following a meeting
between Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan and his Azerbaijani
counterpart Ilham Aliyev, chaired by President Vladimir Putin in
Sochi, the Russian website www.politrus.com ran a story claiming that
Azerbaijan planned to "buy" Karabakh for five billion US dollars.
"This is clear sabotage by Russian media," said Baghdasaryan. "The
article did not carry the usual byline, and just said it was by
'politrus'. [Azerbaijani website] www.haqqin.az then reprinted the
article, and it spread."
On August 2, the Russian news agency Regnum published a story claiming
that Azerbaijani armoured vehicles were advancing along the whole
front line, and carried three photographs showing dozens of tanks.
Many Armenians panicked, believing the photographs were of tanks
actually deployed in the field, whereas in fact they were taken last
year when Russia delivered a shipment of armoured vehicles to Baku.
Samvel Martirosyan, who lectures on blogging and new media at Yerevan
State University, says Armenian journalists have grown increasingly
careful about sifting fact from fiction.
"An interesting thing has happened to the Armenian media, which are
normally very poor at checking information. They have always happily
accepted disinformation spread by Azerbaijan. But this time they have
orientated themselves very quickly, and most of the media have been
very careful about spreading information," he said.
Gohar Abrahamyan is a correspondent for www.ArmeniaNow.com in Armenia.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/azerbaijani-armenian-media-wage-virtual-war