• am
  • ru
  • en
print version
18.10.2006

Internet as a field of information war against Armenia

   

Samvel Martirosyan 

The Azerbaijani party makes an active use of internet in an information war against Armenia and Republic of Nagorni Karabakh. In connection with the fact that internet-mass media influence becomes more and more dominant in the world, significance of information net on Karabakh conflict also increases. Besides, various internet-communities become more and more influential on public opinion shaping.

Disinformation

Karabakh conflict has been followed by a stream of disinformation from the very day it began. However, in connection with that, internet gives more opportunities:

  1. False information inserted in the net spreads with great speed. As a matter of fact disinformation spreads very quickly through internet, especially in critical situations, when a lot of things depend on the speed of information distribution.
  2. Net distribution is available for the user for a long time. Printed or electronic mass media give only short term results. Besides, as a result of competent actions of the misinforming party, false information may become available for a very large audience for a long period of time.

The Azerbaijani party has well-developed means for spreading disinformation. For the last few years information-analytical portal Day.az has been dynamically developing under the private support of the state. The materials have been published in Russian and English by the resources of the member of Permanent Commission on International Relations Milli Mejilis and inter-Parliamentary ties of Anar Mamedkhanov.

According to information of different ratings, Day.az is visited by more then 100 thousand users a month and more then 10 thousand a day. Reference index of edition in internet is equal to 2200, which, according to Yandex system data, is the 38th showing among all the Russian-language editions in internet. Thus, while giving a search in Yandex search system by key words “Armenia news”, Day.az takes the second place (the first place is not taken by a merely Armenian resource either - the project of RIA News “News-Armenia” takes that place). Taking into consideration that according to statistics most of the users make use mainly of the first ten showings of searching machine, Day.az takes the position of one of the main sources of information on Armenia.

As a matter of fact, it is the most usable news internet-resource in South Caucasus, where one can find information on everything in the region. Besides, many Armenians, not having an alternative of the same level, use the very Day.az as a source of information.

Day.az periodically spreads disinformation in internet. At the same time they don’t use their own information, but make reference to Azerbaijani information agency APA, which is a permanent provider of false information on Armenia and Karabakh. Taking into consideration popularity and high rating of Day.az’s searching machines, such materials spread in global net very quickly.

Utilization of net-community

Disinformation in internet is spread not only directly through mass media. Various net communities, such as forums, blogs (internet-diaries) etc, are also used for this purpose. After discharging mass media with disinformation by Azerbaijani party, the fighters of information front set to work. A huge number of Azerbaijani users begin spreading these materials through various forums, blogs and net-communities. Such a step sharply raises the audience of the thrown information, at the same time increasing popularity of Azerbaijani mass media the reference is made to.

Besides, organized brigades of information fighters also work in internet. Their main goal is discrediting the Armenian party and engaging in propaganda in favor of Azerbaijan. As a matter of fact, the representatives of these groupings take part in all the resources, where materials on Armenia, Karabakh and Azerbaijan are published, besides their activities are sure to be coordinated. They closely collaborate with hesitating users and skillfully discredit Armenia and Karabakh. They peruse the following primary goals: to present their country’s position, carry out propagandistic work, discredit the enemy. These groups’ activity is so high that while visiting the forums where their materials are inserted, one may get information both on current political processes and the historical component of Karabakh conflict. In forums one may also find exceptional archival materials not available in the net.

Often the method of masking is used – they are represented by the Russian, Jews, Georgians, Americans etc. and on their behalf they defame the apposed country. Besides, active work is carried out to spread negative feelings towards Armenians among the representatives of other nations. So, in internet forums of fascistic orientation, Armenians are represented as the advocates of Zionism, in European communities – the ones of anti-Semitism and acting under “a foreign flag” the subject of Armenian-Georgian conflict is being actively worked out. In suchlike brigades work both the Azerbaijanis living in their homeland and the representatives of Diaspora.

Information battles are carried out not only in forums, blogs, but also in open encyclopedic resources, such as “Vikipedia”- public electronic encyclopedia, which contains hundreds of thousands materials on every possible field. As the articles from “Vikopedia” are open for editing, here an active struggle was carried on for the content of articles on “Karabakh”. Both of the parties spared no effort to present the articles in their favor. As a result there are 11 materials on Nagorni Karabakh in English-language site “Vikopedia” with quite opposite contents. This result was yielded by the parties on the account of the fact that geographical names in English can be written in different ways, even a method of misprinting was used while writing.

Characteristic actions

Hackering methods are actively used in information field to fail the work of the opposite party’s internet-resources. It may be carried out by means of temporal sustention of the sites’ work, their destruction or changing the information inserted in the sites in their favor. The first internet clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan took place in 2000. However, after that the exchange of blows was sustained for a while.

The next large-scale exchange of blows took place in spring 2005. Then, for the first time attacks on Armenian forums were launched by the Azerbaijani party. A number of resources were destroyed after which the operations took larger scale. Dozens of sites were destroyed in both sides. The main victims of the attack became long abandoned sites as well as not too professional administrative internet-forums. However, the work of a number of such first-rate resources as Hayastan.com, Yerevan.ru, OpenArmenia.com. was upset. At the same time two important Armenian resources (Genocide.ru, ArmenianHouse.org), which contained huge base of historical data, were attacked by Turkish hackers. That period became remarkable by unification of Turkish and Azerbaijani hacker groups.

After that, once every half a year, periodical attacks on Armenian recourses were carried on. The last attack was launched in September of this year. At the same time more serious methods of breaking were used, which has come to prove that the opposite party works in this direction. One more wave of attacks on Armenian resources was mounted this year. A number of sites were broken in March; however the main goal of hackers was the site of the singer Andre, who took part in the competition in Eurovision. After breaking the mentioned site the photographs of victims in Khojalu were inserted there (as well as in a few more recourses).

Even Hungarian web-resources became victims of the cyber-war. After bringing in the verdict of Ramil Safarov, the Azerbaijani hackers broke exactly 100 Hungarian sites as a token of protest. Turkish groups also joined them, breaking a few more Hungarian recourses.


Return
Another materials of author