The Media and Broadcasting Council of Azerbaijan has warned of alleged coordinated social media activity aimed at politicising school uniform regulations, distorting public opinion and creating artificial social tension. In a press release, the Council has urged citizens, media organisations and social media users to remain vigilant and verify information before sharing it.
"The approval of uniform dress codes for students and teachers in Azerbaijan serves to uphold the principle of secular education and ensure a consistent approach within the educational environment. Nevertheless, attempts by certain circles to deliberately politicise the essence of the issue, frame it in religious terms and turn it into a source of artificial public tension have been observed.
Activities carried out in a coordinated manner, particularly on social media platforms, have further heightened these concerns. The mass dissemination of posts containing identical or similar content, including negative comments and reactions, through individual accounts within short intervals, as well as calls encouraging people to disrupt public order, are particularly noteworthy. The repeated engagement of a large number of posts by a limited number of accounts bearing similar names, together with increased activity during specific time intervals, provides serious grounds to believe that this process is coordinated in nature. It points to a troll attack and information manipulation orchestrated from a single centre outside the country.
The primary aim of such interference is to distort genuine public opinion, create the impression of widespread discontent through the artificial activity of individual accounts, divert attention from the substance of the issue and turn the subject into an instrument for specific political objectives.
The Media and Broadcasting Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan calls on citizens, media organisations and social media users to remain vigilant against such practices, take account of the coordinated activities of suspicious accounts, refrain from sharing manipulative content without verifying it, and avoid falling under the influence of artificially generated waves of information," the Council wrote in the press release.