“This hybrid cyber war continues against RA, and the goal is to put additional pressure on Armenians. And Azerbaijan is using this against our state,” Shahen Shahinyan, geodesist, cartographer, author of the ELMA cartographic project, noted in a conversation with Aravot.am, referring to the attempts by Azerbaijanis to change the names of Armenian settlements in Google and Yandex maps.
Information security expert Samvel Martirosyan, alerting about this, noted: “It is based on the fact that a huge number of identical proposals lead to the change of the name of a specific location or the appearance of a new location. That is why, for example, Aliyev’s fountains, gardens, etc., have appeared in Yerevan. Shahen Shahinyan stated that Google is a commercial organization that works commercially. “In other words, information is not formed only based on public opinion. And it is necessary to clearly understand how Google’s mechanism for changing place names works.”
Google has regional moderators, the so-called staff, who verify, confirm, or reject the authenticity of place names. If we send a lot of requests regarding the change of the object, then it will become a subject of discussion by the moderators, and in fact, it cannot be excluded that Azerbaijan will pay Google at the state level to change those toponyms in favor of Azerbaijan. The cartographer compared this mechanism to the situation that when a new cafe opens, they want to add it to Google; in addition to the owner’s official claim, there may also be private claims that, for example, such an object was opened here.
Shahen Shahinyan said this risk has always existed; it was not made public. “Periodically, we have noticed changes, and we have taken steps to reject those changes. In the past, we have received similar requests from Google; for example, is this information correct or incorrect? We gave opinions.”
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We were interested; for example, have they received such requests from Google lately? Shahen Shahinyan answered: “Now we don’t work with Google, starting 2018-2019. I can’t say whether the Armenian moderators received it or not.” According to Shahen Shahinyan, the most essential thing in this situation is to increase the internet literacy of our society. “It will help people to distinguish real information from fake information. That is very important so we do not panic about an Azerbaijani cyber attack. That is why our society should be endowed with an analytical mind.”
Shahen Shahinyan said that what the Azerbaijanis are trying to do now has serious dangers. “This contains a threat in that the Azerbaijanis publish false information, then work to popularize that incorrect information and create a different perception of the territory of Armenia and the objects essential to us among foreign users.
Regarding the place names of the same Artsakh Republic, they are doing an excellent job so that mass media and ordinary users abroad use Azerbaijani place names. Local specialists and Diaspora Armenians worked to popularize Armenian place names as a countermeasure to that. It is essential. RA residents and state bodies must use Armenian place names because Turks have a widespread habit. They quickly rename the place names in their language or present them in a more favorable form. It should be remembered that since the 1990s, RA has done extensive work, and tens of thousands of place names in Armenia and Artsakh have restored their historical Armenian names.
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
