An investigation by The Guardian has revealed a network of fake social media accounts that appear to be boosting Azerbaijan’s image ahead of its hosting of the COP29 climate summit in Baku, silencing critical voices on the country’s climate and human rights record. The accounts, primarily active on X (formerly Twitter), have been shown to artificially inflate the engagement of posts from the Azerbaijani government, with hashtags such as #COP29 and #COP29Azerbaijan increasingly dominated by official content rather than critical perspectives.
According to Global Witness, which conducted the analysis, these accounts began appearing after July, when seven of the top ten most engaged posts with COP29-related hashtags were initially critical of Azerbaijan’s role in the ongoing Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, with tags like #StopGreenWashGenocide highlighting concerns. By September, however, the top posts were exclusively from the official COP29 Azerbaijan account, a shift Global Witness attributes to coordinated, inauthentic activity designed to drown out criticism.
“Azerbaijan is days away from hosting the most important climate event of the year,” said Ava Lee from Global Witness. “It’s vitally important that there is space for a real discussion about what governments must do to address the climate emergency. Yet a network of seemingly inauthentic accounts are replacing rightful criticism with flowery positivity.” Lee further highlighted concerns around X’s “deliberately reduced” trust and safety capabilities, which limit effective regulation of online behavior. She urged X to create space for “healthy and authentic debate” during this critical global event.
The Global Witness analysis revealed 71 accounts flagged as suspicious. Nearly all were created since May, with many sharing similar nature-themed imagery like flowers and trees. More than half of their posts in September used the #COP29 or #COP29Azerbaijan tags, and 70% of their retweets were of the official Azerbaijan COP29 posts or other official Azerbaijan government, party, or politician posts. The accounts were also part of a network, with most connected to at least six other suspicious accounts.
An analysis of posts from the first 16 accounts identified showed that on October 1, 12 of the accounts posted one after the other in a sequence, suggesting the accounts were controlled by one person who logged on to each account in turn. All of this evidence suggests the accounts are fake, though it remains possible that a few are authentic.
Another 111 accounts were found to be supportive of Azerbaijan’s COP29 hosting but lacked the distinct nature-themed imagery seen in the main group of 71 profiles.
In response, X has suspended or restricted several accounts in the network, replacing posts with notices such as “X suspends accounts which violate the X rules” and marking others as “temporarily restricted” due to “unusual activity.” An X spokesperson confirmed that a “majority of the accounts” flagged in Global Witness’s report had been actioned and stated that safety teams were actively working against coordinated inauthentic behavior on the platform.
This is not the first instance of Azerbaijan using inauthentic social media networks. In April 2022, Facebook owner Meta reported: “We disrupted a complex network in Azerbaijan that engaged in both cyber-espionage and coordinated inauthentic behavior. It primarily targeted people from Azerbaijan, including democracy activists, opposition, journalists, and government critics abroad. This campaign was prolific but low in sophistication, and was run by the Azeri ministry of internal affairs.”
Azerbaijan’s role as the host of COP29, starting November 11, comes amid its plans to increase gas production by 50% over the next decade, despite the summit’s focus on achieving urgent cuts in fossil fuel usage. Observers have raised concerns that, as in last year’s COP28 summit in the UAE, the presence of a petrostate as host could compromise the event’s outcomes. Last year, COP28 saw the failure to reach an agreement on a full “phase-out” of fossil fuels, with countries instead agreeing to the more limited objective of “transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry and the COP29 press office did not respond to requests for comment on the findings reported by The Guardian.
