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Since the afternoon of July 12, the tension along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border near Tavush has created fertile ground for the spread of disinformation and panic-causing news.
Hacked Armenian accounts – source of fake news.
In parallel with the border tensions, various publications, allegedly made made by Armenian users, started spreading on the Armenian domain of Facebook, with which the latter “informed” about several dozen victims of the Armenian side, accusing the country leadership of hiding them.
Today, the post of a user named “Marine Aghababyan” became especially popular, who, referring to his brother serving in the army, wrote about more than 37 victims in the Armenian army.
As it turned out, however, this account was hacked by Azerbaijani hackers, who started spreading this panic-causing post.
It turned out that posts with such content were spread by other “fake” users as well.
It is noteworthy that, as a rule, the authors of such notes usually present
themselves as the victim’s sister, brother, uncle, aunt, etc. They mainly write in Armenian letters, and when examining their accounts it is difficult to find any evidence that the account has been hacked.
They actively share their posts in different Facebook groups and in the comments under other posts.
It is difficult for credulous readers to notice that the information is fake, which, as a result, causes panic, casting doubt on the authenticity of the official information.
The exclusive publication of Hraparak.am
It should be noted that, although with some exceptions, the Armenian media field has generally refrained from republishing disinformation spread by Azerbaijani side.
Hraparak.am published a video from Azerbaijani media outlets, claiming, however, that it was sent to them by their Georgian counterpart IMEDI TV. In fact, it was the same video of the Armenian posts being attacked, disseminated by the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan. The authenticity of this post, however, has not been confirmed by official Armenian sources.
Later, two videos were published on the website (“The oddness of the video of the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry“, “Azerbaijanis spread fake videos: they forgot that at night it is dark in Tavush “), in which, in fact, the website admitted that “exclusive video” sent by their “Georgian counterparts” is not so exclusive, moreover, there are “strange aspects” in it. However, the first post has not been removed from the website yet.
Gazeta.ru referred to 5 wounded people of the Armenian side as victims.
On July 13, the Russian website Gazeta.ru, when referring to the clashes on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, wrote that the Armenian side had 5 victims.
The website cited RIA “Novosti”, which, however, had not written any article with such content.
Ministry of Defense spokeswoman Shushan Stepanyan stated in a conversation with the “Fact Investigation Platform” that the news of Gazeta.ru did not correspond to reality, and that the Armenian side had no losses.
According to Stepanyan, there was probably a misunderstanding, and Gazeta.ru referred to the wounded people as victims.
Thus, in the last two days, the social networks have become the main platform for spreading misinformation, since here it is practically difficult for users to separate the real from the false. Russian websites have not been left out of spreading misinformation about Armenia.
Sevada Ghazaryan
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