The Sunday Read: ’The Agency’

2020-09-20

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According to Ludmila Savchuk, a former employee, every day at the Internet Research Agency was essentially the same.From an office complex in the Primorsky District of St. Petersburg, employees logged on to the internet via a proxy service and set about flooding Russia’s popular social networking sites with opinions handed to them by their bosses.The shadowy organization, which according to one employee filled 40 rooms, industrialized the art of “trolling.”On this week’s Sunday Read, Adrien ...

According to Ludmila Savchuk, a former employee, every day at the Internet Research Agency was essentially the same.

From an office complex in the Primorsky District of St. Petersburg, employees logged on to the internet via a proxy service and set about flooding Russia’s popular social networking sites with opinions handed to them by their bosses.

The shadowy organization, which according to one employee filled 40 rooms, industrialized the art of “trolling.”

On this week’s Sunday Read, Adrien Chen reports on trolling and the agency, and, eventually, becomes a victim of Russian misinformation himself.

This story was written by Adrian Chen and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

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