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 to address the use of Facebook Pages – at least in the case of Azerbaijan as pointed out here and here – to target independent media. The most recent example is this Facebook post, shared by Azerbaijan Service for Radio Liberty. The post, is a caricature by Gunduz Aghayev, addressing the rising cost of fuel in the country. Under the post, 549 comments to be exact claim all sorts of things – that the radio is biased, is lying, the economy is doing great, that the State Oil Company (SOCAR) knows exactly what it’s doing, etc. A closer look at the comments reveals that each belongs to a user operating a fake Facebook page. Earlier this month, AIW reported about Azerbaijan’s very own troll factory.
Will Facebook take notice this time?
