Fake social media accounts boost Azerbaijan before COP29

Scores of apparently fake social media accounts are boosting Azerbaijan’s hosting of the COP29 climate summit, The Guardian reports with reference to Global Witness’s analysis.

The Global Witness analysis has reportedly uncovered 71 suspicious accounts on X. All share nature-related banner and profile images, often flowers or trees, and some accounts used exactly the same images.

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.

Global Witness said artificially inflating the reach of government posts was drowning out independent criticism of the country’s record on the climate crisis and repression of human rights.

Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry and the COP29 press office failed to respond to requests for comment from the Guardian.