“People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world — a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures of society.”

This is how Mark Zuckerberg recently defined his vision of the future of Facebook, saying that the social media giant had been founded to give people a voice and bring them together.

Enter Azerbaijan, a country governed by a leadership known for corruption, slush funds and cracking down on critics. In the absence of independent spaces for public conversation, much of Azerbaijan’s civil society has turned to Facebook and other social media platforms as their medium for communication, organising and discussion.

In this South Caucasus state, political figures rely on Facebook to share updates from their political parties and organisations - and talk to their supporters. Activists organise events and rallies on Facebook and then use the platform to live broadcast their activities and share updates.

This makes activists’ online presence a target for hackers. Although sometimes the damage of a hacked Facebook profile or page is minimal, in other cases it is serious.

When Azerbaijani opposition activist Ali N Aliyev had his Facebook profile hacked, the hacker gained access to intimate photos of other political activists and started sharing them using Aliyev’s profile. Aliyev, a former parliamentary candidate with 130,000 followers on Facebook, still does not have access to his account.

Likewise, Azerbaijani independent news platforms depend on Facebook for sharing their stories. Some of these news websites have been blocked in Azerbaijan, and Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have thus become the sole remaining outlet for audience to receive news. Other media initiatives rely on Facebook and other social media platforms because they don’t have websites of their own - in order to avoid blocking.

A recent protest wave in Azerbaijan has put this digital reliance - both for individuals and organisations - into perspective. On 19 October, a coalition of opposition parties organised a demonstration in central Baku. Their demands included the release of political prisoners, free and fair elections, and solutions to growing unemployment and economic injustice. The next day, a group of women rights activists held a protest over violence against women, highlighting the recent murder of an Azerbaijani woman, Leyla Mammadova, who was stabbed to death in front of her children and passers-by.