Even though the pandemic is over, coordinated networks of Facebook pages and websites continue to exploit people’s health fears to drive traffic and generate revenue.
Modern digital platforms enable groups to build networks of websites and Facebook pages that look independent but work together. These networks may have various goals – from political influence to profit. In this case, we focus on networks in Georgia that use misleading, sensational clickbait headlines to generate traffic and drive sales.
Clickbait headlines play on emotions like curiosity and fear to get clicks, but the content usually fails to deliver. While not always false, clickbait prioritizes attention over accuracy. Health topics are a common target. Quick fixes, miracle cures, and scary warnings tap into people’s fears and desire for easy solutions. These networks often publish exaggerated or false health claims to boost clicks and profits.
Case Study: Folktips.org
Folk Tips (folktips.org), launched in March 2021, publishes articles on health, travel, beauty, and lifestyle. Much of its content features sensational headlines that distort or fabricate facts. Many posts are promotional, with embedded ads or affiliate links—often to services like Avia.ge or El Home. Its Facebook page named “Tips” in Georgian language is active since 2017 and has over 125K followers. The page has undergone several name changes likely tied to domain shifts, indicating strategic rebranding. The platform uses AdSocial, a digital advertising service owned by Shota Teliashvili, who also owns Avia.ge. This commong ownership links the website, Facebook pages, and ad infrastructure into a single business-driven ecosystem, where harmful health-related content is exploited primarily to drive sales for Avia.ge, a Georgian travel company.
The Facebook page “Tips” manages eight Facebook groups with names like “Carabadine,” “Way of Jesus,” “Mothers’ Club,” “Vacancies with High Income,” “Quizzes,” “Georgia,” and “Renovation.” This is a common tactic used by inauthentic, non-transparent networks on Facebook. The actors behind these networks create topic-specific groups to attract and engage users with diverse interests.
Analysing the admins and moderators of these groups helped us uncover a broader network linked to Avia.ge’s assets on Facebook and related websites. Many groups share the same admins and moderators. Besides spreading harmful health information from folktips.org, they also promoted sites like Vau.ge and Lui.ge. These groups were managed not only by the Tips Facebook page but also by other pages, revealing a wide network of clickbait health disinformation spanning dozens of pages, groups, and websites. We also identified inauthentic fake accounts managing these Facebook groups. These accounts typically use generic photos found online or stolen from other social media users. Their activity is mostly limited to sharing content from the Avia.ge-related network on their own timelines or within groups, aiming to drive clicks and engagement.
Case study: Martivad.com
Another site, Martivad.com was launched in 2019 and publishes content on health, cooking, and lifestyle, similar in tone and layout to folktips.org. Its Facebook presence, through the page “Your Page” (426K+ followers), consistently posts clickbait headlines linked to martivad.com. Reverse image searches of page profile photos reveal several interconnected accounts, including “Tips,” “House and Design,” “Facepaparazzi,” and “Beautiful.” These share branding elements, logo styles, follower counts, and content tone—indicating coordinated management.
Similar to the Facebook assets linked to folktips.org, these pages also manage groups with overlapping admins and moderators. The accounts behind them show signs of inauthentic behaviour and promote content from other websites like unique.ge and alltime.ge. To understand the connections between these websites and our original website, Martivad.com, we turned to various DNS and WHOIS tools, such as registrator.ge, which provides information about registrants of websites with a .ge domain. The analysis revealed overlapping admin data—repeated email addresses—indicating shared ownership among these websites. See registrant information here and here.
In conclusion, these interconnected pages and groups, though appearing diverse and independent, are part of a tightly managed network. The illusion of variety conceals their shared ownership and commercial goals.
Although the pandemic is over, the spread of health misinformation in Georgia continues, driven not by public interest but by profit. Coordinated networks take advantage of Facebook’s engagement-focused algorithms to amplify low-credibility content. Their tactics undermine media literacy, mislead the public, and reduce the overall quality of information online. Understanding these networks and the business models behind them is essential to recognizing and resisting manipulation in the digital information space.
RESEARCH | ARTICLE © Lile Toronjadze, University of Georgia, Tbilisi, Georgia
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