Heydarli: Information war against Azerbaijan is waged in Azerbaijani

An information war against Azerbaijan is being waged in the Azerbaijani language itself, journalist Hajibay Heydarli wrote on Facebook, pointing to dozens and hundreds of accounts, profiles and pages run from abroad.

Heydarli cited remarks by President Ilham Aliyev at a YAP congress. "Right next to us, provocations against us are being rained down in the Azerbaijani language day and night," Aliyev said.

To see that reality there is no need to follow foreign media, Heydarli wrote: it is enough to open social networks and look at profiles created in neighboring countries that operate in Azerbaijani.

Such pages spread hatred, seek to create confrontation in society and to build distrust toward the state and national interests, he wrote. Some openly circulate false information, some distort facts, and others exploit sensitive points in society to set people against one another.

The most dangerous element is that these provocations come in the native language, Heydarli wrote. People accept more readily what they read and hear in their own language, and the accounts behind the campaigns know the thinking and the emotions of the local audience, exaggerate existing problems and at times present events that never happened as truth. Repeated often enough, a lie begins to be taken for the truth, he wrote.

Information warfare is often remembered only during military operations, while it can continue every day and every hour on phone screens, he wrote. A fake news item, a manipulative video, a speech taken out of context or a claim spread from a false profile can reach thousands of people, and users often share material without checking its source.

Heydarli wrote that such provocations cannot be met with silence, but that the response must rest on facts, professionalism and the law, and be consistent rather than emotional. Society must be able to tell truth from falsehood, and the president's words at the congress should be treated as a serious warning, he wrote.

Readers should look not only at what is written but at the facts it rests on and the purpose it serves, he wrote, adding that the most dangerous attack on a country sometimes begins not at its borders but on the phone screens of its own citizens.

Heydarli is the founder and editor-in-chief of the news website Azxeber.com and a board member of the Azerbaijan Press Council, elected at its eighth congress on Sept. 24, 2022.