“RSF is alarmed about the disguised purchase of media coverage and the opacity of digital political financing, and calls on Meta and the Armenian authorities to improve regulation of sponsored political content and content generated by artificial intelligence (AI). This dynamic marks a break with previous elections in Armenia. When access to the media depends on the ability to pay, pluralism and the public’s right to reliable news and information are directly threatened.

In Armenia, influence and disinformation can now be bought on a large scale. On the eve of the legislative elections, Facebook pages devoted to recipes, humour or entertainment, as well as pages belonging to news media outlets, have been relaying identical political messages within minutes. These include messages criticising Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, accusing him, for example, of lacking courage by avoiding confrontation with the public, or claiming that his policies have damaged relations with Moscow and caused trade difficulties. Such content reveals the scale of the “pay-to-play” system: an opaque influence market where political visibility and news media space are bought like advertising space.

As well as opaque news websites that mainly function as amplification platforms, such as Newsarm.live, Fakt.am, Politico.am and Pressmedia.am, the established opposition media outlet Past.am is also taking part in this system in favour of the Strong Armenia party. RSF observed this from April, and especially from mid-May, three weeks ahead of the elections.

Facebook pages used for political amplification

For example, Facebook was flooded on 23 May with a wave of coordinated posts in support of this conservative party, founded by Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan. Between 9.04 a.m. and 9.18 a.m., 49 Facebook pages published, almost simultaneously, an interview in which Samvel Karapetyan denied being a Kremlin envoy, contrary to the findings of an investigation by the exiled Russian investigative media outlet The Insider. A little later, within 12 minutes, 53 other pages republished, en masse, an anti-government article entitled “An Election Campaign Under the Sign of Repression.” The mechanism continued throughout the day: at 2.32 p.m., nine Facebook pages attacked the government with an identical message accusing the authorities of having “fled their own citizens”; at 2.55 p.m., 10 other accounts simultaneously relayed a post defending relations with Russia; finally, in the evening, a video entitled “Change Comes with Samvel Karapetyan” was disseminated in a synchronised manner by at least six pages within one minute.

“Dozens of pages that have accumulated hundreds of thousands of followers over the years through entertainment or religious content suddenly changed their editorial line to promote political actors,” said Ani Grigoryan, editor-in-chief of the fact-checking unit at the independent media outlet CivilNet. RSF had already observed a similar tactic in a previous investigation into Chinese influence networks in Taiwan. As part of this mechanism, the opposition website Past.am appears to play a central role in disseminating political content that is then relayed and amplified by other pages.

RSF contacted the press service of the Strong Armenia party for its response to the findings presented in this analysis, but had not received a reply at the time of publication,

Hidden advertising and AI videos – industrialised manipulation

Such practices are not limited to Samvel Karapetyan’s camp. “The same network of pages was used to promote a former defence minister and other political actors,” said Ani Grigoryan. The ruling Civil Contract party also benefits from the support of networks of widely followed pages relaying content hostile to its opponents. A recent CivilNet investigation established links between two anonymous Facebook pages, connected to the website MediaNews, that publish attacks against the opposition and those close to the prime minister’s deputy chief of staff.

This synchronised dissemination mechanism is accompanied by massive investment in online political advertising. According to data from Meta’s Ad Library, nearly 480,000 USD (around 412,000 EUR) was spent on political advertising on Facebook in Armenia between February and May 2026 – an unprecedented level in the country. The Strong Armenia party alone invested nearly 291,000 USD (around 250,000 EUR). These figures reflect only part of the phenomenon: pages linked to political forces are running political ads marked by Meta as having been published without an official sponsor disclosure, in violation of the platform’s transparency rules. This is the case for several pages affiliated with Samvel Karapetyan’s party, including “Strong Armenia Artik” and “Strong Armenia Charentsavan.”

Alongside this economic capture of the media space, manipulation methods are becoming increasingly sophisticated. CivilNetCheck revealed that at least 12 Facebook pages were disseminating AI-generated videos showing supposed citizens being interviewed in the street and criticising the ruling party and the main opposition forces, with the exception of Strong Armenia. “The videos looked so realistic that many users engaged in genuine political debates in the comments, without appearing to realise that the people shown in the videos had been generated by artificial intelligence,” said Ani Grigoryan.

This vulnerability in Armenia’s public debate is part of a broader regional context of information warfare. A recent investigation published by the independent Swedish media outlet Blankspot revealed the existence of a confidential document detailing Russian strategies for influencing the Armenian elections, including by disseminating pro-Russian narratives and exploiting the weaknesses of the local media landscape, similar to the interference documented during the last elections in Moldova.