Adrian Chen suggested that a series of provocations in American social networks can be a Russian company "Internet Research" from St. Petersburg, known as "trolls factory." The results of his investigation, he published in the newspaper The New York Times.

Attention journalists in autumn 2014 drew messages to Twitter and Facebook that a chemical plant in Louisiana as a result of the explosion there was a leak of toxic vesch EU ETS. Information about this appeared in the social networks on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks and caused a panic, which was averted only after the official denial of the authorities. On the Internet, says Chen, a video appeared of some explosions and fires issued for the accident at the chemical plant, as well as the movie, in which militants LIH assume responsibility for the blast.

Similar incidents of falsified reports of incidents, which were accompanied by elaborately mounted video clips, laid out on YouTube, were recorded as a journalist in December in Atlanta. In one case, it was about the alleged epidemic of Ebola under the hashtag #EbolaInAtlanta. In the other - with the hashtag #shockingmurderinatlanta - told the police about the murder unarmed black woman.

The author used the material content of e-mails, which were allegedly stolen from the "Internet Research" staff hacker group "Anonymous International" and put in "Humpty Dumpty" blog. Chen says that in one of the letters found a list of accounts that the company used for trolling in the English-speaking sector of the Internet, and tried to match them with the authors of the provocative messages.

User I Am Ass, as established by the journalist, had multiple accounts in Facebook, accounts on Twitter and the Instagram, as well as its own website. Chen drew attention to the profiles of some of his online friends that it seemed unusual. According to him, all these accounts have been created in the summer of 2014. According to the profile of their owners looked like a well-dressed young people of both sexes, who were living in major US cities, but did not seem to have real friends. At the same time, they constantly leave comments against US President BarackObama, in Fasebook US media, such as CNN, Politico and Fox News. All this has forced Chen to come to the conclusion that the majority of contacts I Am Ass were trolls.

The author of the material added to the maximum possible number of friends suspected the troll from Facebook and began to watch their actions. A few weeks later, he noticed that a resident of Seattle named Polly Turner became interested in a real event - an art exhibition in New York entitled "Evidence". It was dedicated to the disclosure of the "full truth" about the civil war in Syria and Evromaydane Ukraine. In the discussion of this topic the journalist saw him familiar users, which he identified as the network trolls.

Soon, Twitter started the company under the hashtag viral #MaterialEvidence. Chen went to one of the messages with the enthusiastic response of the exhibition by a user named Zhou Foreman. He studied her account and found that the September 11, 2014 she spent several hours writing to politicians and journalists about the disaster at a chemical plant in Louisiana.

Chen found that the troll postson Twitter with the hashtag #ColumbianChemicals, dedicated to the accident at the plant in Louisiana, distributed via Masss Post application that, according to the reporter, due to the broken page on the domain Add1.ru. The author of the material claims that the domain name was registered in January 2009 by Michael Burchik, e-mail which was tied to Add1.ru until 2012. According to documents published by the 'Anonymous International ", this person holds the position of executive director of" Internet Research ".

Sam Burchik Chen said that he does not work in this company. He also said he had never heard about the application Masss Post and did not remember about the domain Add1.ru, since he had to buy and sell a lot of sites. Businessman suggested that perhaps we are talking about some other Burchik Michael, who is director of the "Internet Research". Chen noted that the email address associated with Add1.ru, and the address listed on the website of Michael Burchik with whom he communicated, are identical.

As a further indirect evidence linking internet trollth with Russian journalist gave a video posted on Facebook one of the alleged trolls. It was dedicated to incidents involving the US Secret Service, which deals with the protection of top officials. The author pointed out that the man who voiced video, trying to speak in English with an American accent, but he gets the Australian accent. Furthermore, his voice was like the voice voiced videos that accompanied the false reports of an explosion at a chemical factory, and the murder of a black woman in Atlanta.

Chen showed a video vomeronasal Andrew, told the St. Petersburg newspaper "Moy Rayon", which is one of the first wrote about the "factory of the trolls." According to the Russian journalist, animation movie about the Secret Service was made by "Infoserfing", which deals with the creation of infographics for publication in social networks. In her account [Chen did not specify which of the social networks] was taken by the above video, but with a Russian voice acting. Soshnikov demonstrated through the service Yomapic, which allows the user to locateAtelier that the posts published in Instagram «Infoservinga" were sent to addresses in the localized area of ​​the house 55 Savushkina street in St. Petersburg. In this building, according to the Russians, it is the company "Internet Research".

Investigative journalism is a "factory trolls" who write pro-Kremlin comments on social networks, previously appeared on the websites of "Radio Liberty" and "Novaya Gazeta". According to these materials, employees' Internet research "also engaged in manufacturing of visual content, including videos and demotivators.