Technical analysis

After The Guardian’s expose on Facebook overlooking trolling activity in Azerbaijan (and elsewhere) earlier this year, one would think that the platform would finally take notice and address how the platform is abused by trolls and the actors operating them. Instead, the loopholes remain and from the looks of it, the platform is doing little […]

Account compromise, website hacks, DDoS attempts, phishing are just a handful of tactics used to target journalists, rights defenders, and activists in Azerbaijan.  Here is a list of new cases:  Earlier in July, Azerbaijan Internet Watch reported a phishing attack that targeted some of the civil society activists. Following a forensic investigation carried out in […]

On July 16, Qurium Media Foundation released a report, “A Decade of Efforts To Keep Independent Azerbaijani Media Online”.  The report highlights the work carried out by Qurium since 2010 assisting targeted independent and opposition online news platforms in Azerbaijan. “For more than a decade, Qurium has monitored and mitigated a wide range of cyberattacks […]

On July 8, Azerbaijan Internet Watch received a notification that an email sent on behalf of Human Rights Watch reached a number of prominent Azerbaijani civil society activists. The email contained an attachment “Human Rights Invoice Form Document – 2021.docx” prompting the recipient to download the attached file. AIW, reached out to partners at Qurium […]

On July 1, Azerbaijan Internet Watch launched a new report titled “Media censorship in Azerbaijan through the lens of network measurement”. The report was prepared in partnership with the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) summarising key findings from network measurements conducted between January 2020 to May 2021. The full report can be accessed here. About […]

According to latest measurements carried out by OONI, access to a number of key news sites remains blocked in Azerbaijan.  In its latest report that covers the period from January through April, OONI concludes, there is “a strong signal that specific censorship techniques are adopted to block access to these specific media websites.” One noteworthy […]

On March 1, Access Now released the #KeepItOn report that documents incidents of internet shutdowns globally for the year 2020.  According to the findings of the report: there were 155 Internet shutdowns documented across 29 countries; there were 28 complete internet blackouts;  out of the 155 internet shutdowns, six incidents were bandwidth throttling; there were […]

[Update] On March 1, in response to a legal complaint filed by Gulnara Mehdiyeva’s lawyers the Ministry of Internal Affairs informed the defender that the opening of a criminal case on her claim is not planned.  Last year, ahead of International Women’s Day March, one of the activists and organizers of the March in Baku […]

In its most recent measurement report, the Open Observatory of Network Interference [OONI] concludes that “while social media censorship in Azerbaijan appears to have been lifted, the media censorship remains.” These and other findings are based on the recent measurement report produced in partnership with OONI.  Here are some highlights. Blocked websites The news websites […]

Azerbaijan ranked among the top countries where VPN services were in high demand last year between September and November during the 44-day war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. According to Proprivacy and NordVPN research “global events in 2020 have caused surges in VPN demand, as citizens from Belarus to Hong Kong set out to secure their […]