How the "trolley factory" worked in the US elections

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$ 2,2 million, 100 people, more than 6 million subscribers and coverage up to 70 million per week: magazine RBC found out how the "trolley factory" from St. Petersburg tried to influence the outcome of the US presidential election

22 October 2016, Charlotte, North Carolina. On sunny Saturday, a few dozen people went into central park. But not for a walk, but for a meeting of the African American population against “police violence”. Protesters chant slogans at the fountain in the park, then peacefully parade before entering the local police department: they shout out several times on the porch of the department Black Lives Matter - The popular slogan and name of the organization that advocates for the rights of the black population of the United States.

Event in charlotte unwound in Facebook on behalf of the community BlackMattersUSwhich has nothing to do with Black Lives Matters. Communication organization go far beyond the United States - Russia, St. Petersburg, st. Savushkina, 55.

Street Savushkina, 55 Photo: Yandex.Maps service

This address in the Primorsky district of the city has long become a household name. About three years ago in a four-story building on the street. Savushkina was moved by several hundred people whose main task is the propaganda of patriotic values. The work of the employees of the “trolley factory” (hereinafter referred to as the “factory”), supposedly created and sponsored by the St. Petersburg businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, boiled down to writing non-stop comments under false names on blogs and social networks in Runet - in defense of the current government, criticizing oppositionists and in support of politically acceptable social events.

Soon the “factory” began to outgrow its initially primitive methods of work. Around that time, the first portals appeared, which later became the core of the media part of the organization - the so-called “media factory”, a whole patriotic holding, about which RBC magazine wrote 2017 in March and whose audience now exceeds 50 million people per month. After the publication of the “media factory”, the main media of the holding, the Federal News Agency (FAN), registered the portal Fabricmedia.rufollows from service data WhoIs.

By the middle of 2015, the “factory” had grown to 800 – 900 people, and the arsenal of tools had expanded - videos, infographics, memes, reports, news, interviews, analytical materials and their own communities.

And already in January, 2017, along with the RT television channel, the Internet Research Agency, one of the first alleged legal entities of the “trolley factory” (ceased operations in 2015, was excluded from the registry at the end of 2016), Russia's intervention in the US presidential election. And soon after the election of Donald Trump, several commissions were created in Congress and the Senate, which are investigating this incident.

American corporations - Facebook, Twitter, Google - cooperate with the authorities, looking for traces of "trolls" on their sites. Western media - The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, CNN, The Daily Beast et al. - almost daily publish new facts about possible Russian intervention in the presidential campaign: they find new communities that worked before and after the elections, related announcements and events. The articles are even based on individual illustrations and videos related to blocked communities.

RBC magazine conducted its investigation: we were able to find and confirm the involvement of employees from Savushkin Street to at least 120 communities and thematic accounts, analyze their content and calculate the total campaign costs. Is the scale of the work of the "trolley factory" abroad comparable with the excitement caused in the USA around this story?

Meet the USA

Spring 2015 of the year, several people gathered in front of the monitor. A rather monotonous picture on the computer screen: people come to the square in New York, look around, look at the phones, look at the surrounding space again and leave after a while.

Few days before targeting New Yorkers in Facebook the event spun up, the essence of which was to get a free hot dog - you just need to come at the appointed time to the designated place. No sandwiches arrived. But other people enjoyed it: with the help of city street webcams, events were observed online in the square from St. Petersburg, from the office on the second floor of the Troll's Den.

The action was supposed to test the working hypothesis - is it possible to remotely organize an event in US cities. “Just testing the possibilities, experiment. And it was a success, ”one of the employees of the“ factory ”recalls without hiding joy. From that day, that is, almost a year and a half before the US presidential elections, the full-fledged work of the “trolls” began in the American community.

In March, 2015 on the portal SuperJob there was a vacancy "Internet operator (night)". On salary 40 – 50 thousand rubles. with the 2 / 2 work schedule (from 21: 00 to 09: 00), an office in the Primorsky District was looking for an employee whose job responsibilities include writing materials on “a given topic”, “news information and analysis”. The list of requirements for the applicant - "fluent English", including "confident knowledge" of the written language, and creativity.

The vacancy was published by the St. Petersburg Internet Research company (at the end of 2015 joined the company Teka): the company’s owner was then the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Moscow district of St. Petersburg, Mikhail Bystrov - he also headed the Internet Research Agency and has been headed by Glavset, registered on ul. Savushkina, 55 (data "SPARK-Interfax"). In vacancies on SuperJob the employer, Internet Research, was described as a “large and stable company” with up to 50 employees.

Through such announcements, Savushkina recruited people who would take on work with the American communities in real time, the former factory employee told RBC magazine.

Another former employee adds that, right from the beginning of spring, 2015 began to “give tasks to discredit the image of candidates”, which will go to the US presidential election.

However, working in the open “factory” communities soon became impossible: 2 June 2015 in New York Times Magazine there was material The Agency (“Agency”) by Adriana Chen, and the very next day after the publication Facebook blocked all the “factory” groups in English, accounts of fictional administrators and even partially personal pages of employees from Savushkin, recalls the interlocutor of the RBC magazine in the organization. But the "trolls" was not the first time: they went to a new circle - as a result, the main part of the communities that were closed by the social network in August of 2017 were created after the publication of the Chen investigation.

When Facebook blocks accounts "trolls", the IT department of the organization purchases a proxy server, issues new IP addresses, virtual "OSes", and the work begins anew, says the ex-employee of the "factory". Also, new SIM cards or cloud numbers are purchased, new payment accounts are opened, and sometimes packages of documents for registration of accounts, adds the interlocutor of RBC magazine at the “factory”. IT support costs up to 200 thousand rubles. per month, said a source familiar with the activities of the organization.

A much larger item of expenditure is wages. Over the year, by the summer of 2016, the number of employees of the “American Department” on Savushkina almost tripled, to 80 – 90 people. This is approximately one tenth of the total staff of people associated with the "factory".

Remote landing

“They always know what to do. It remains only to hear reports on the results and say that we need to work better, ”says the source of the RBC magazine in Prigogine’s environment when asked how the“ factory ”management structure looks like. Inside the organization, a classic scheme is used: a single leader and curators of directions. Responsible for the various "departments" in the work of neighboring units do not interfere, sometimes they are not at all familiar with each other and do not know who does what, says a source familiar with the organization.

The actual head of the entire “factory” is considered, as RBC magazine wrote, 31-year-old Mikhail Burchik, previously - the owner of his own IT companies VkAp.ru and GaGaDo, a newspaper publisher for municipalities. Burchik himself never officially confirmed that he was managing the “factory” or working in the office for Savushkina, but in a conversation with the magazine RBC said that he was advising the media “as an expert in promoting and developing Internet projects”. Burchik personally communicates approximately with 20 – 30 people who, in turn, manage the staff from 10 to 100 people depending on the direction, describes the work model of the source from the “factory”.

The interlocutors of the RBC magazine unanimously called 27-year-old Azerbaijani-born Jeyhun Aslanov the head of the “American Department”. He himself refuted this information in a conversation with RBC. But in addition to the words of three sources of the magazine - the current employee of the “factory”, the ex-employee of the “American Department” and a source familiar with the organization’s activities — there is a message from RBC magazine Telegram-chata, created by Aslanov and dedicated to the interim results of the work of the “factory” in the USA.

In St. Petersburg, Aslanov arrived at the end of the 2000s from the city of Ust-Kut, Irkutsk Region, to study economics at the Hydrometeorological University. In 2009, he spent several months in the US, visiting New York and Boston, went to London in 2011, follows from public information on Aslanov’s page on VKontakte. Now the probable head of the foreign department of the “factory” owns two companies, the specialization is advertising and work on the Internet. One of them, Azimuth, was created in June of 2016, that is, three months before the elections in the USA, and in six months showed revenue of 29 million rubles. (data "SPARK-Interfax"). At the “factory”, registration of legal entities for their own employees is practiced: for example, several news portals of the “media factory” were recorded for journalists of publications (for example, “People's News” and “Economy Today”).

"Azimuth" provides services for the promotion of accounts in social networks, said Aslanov himself, who even offered to the correspondent of RBC magazine assistance in promoting his personal pages. Aslanov himself, in addition to his VKontakte profile, had an account and Facebookbut it is now blocked. The American corporation did not answer the question from RBC magazine whether this account was closed as part of a campaign to clean up traces of troll interference. Aslanov did not discuss the blocking of his page.

A significant part of the content in English-speaking communities was published through postponed posting in the same Facebook. Approximately 10 people from the general staff of the “foreign department” worked on the night shift, the rest - according to the usual schedule (five working days, two days off). Savushkina’s “American Department” salary fund reaches 60 – 70 million rubles, or about $ 1 million per year: lower-level “trolls” receive about 55 thousand rubles. (plus awards for the reaction of participants in the communities), administrators - 80 – 90 thousand rubles, management - from 120 thousand rubles, the figures are the former and current employees of the “factory”.

All employees are officially registered in one of the legal entities of the organization - there are about ten of them. The revenue of Glavset, registered in Savushkina, 55, in 2016 amounted to 86,4 million rubles. - with the cost of sold “goods, products, works, services” in 83,1 million rubles. (almost $ 1,4 million; data "SPARK-Interfax").

The work inside the “American department” was built “from creativity,” or so-called bushes, the source said from the “factory”. In the first case, people who better manage to invent and create their content — for example, pictures and memes for a California photo-sharing service — stood out from the crowd. Imgur (audience - more than 30 million). And “bushes” means thematic communities that have become popular on several platforms at once - for example, the same BlackMattersUS. One group in Facebook accounted for up to five administrator accounts - for example, Stop AI. led Bertha Malone and David Waddell.

RBC magazine has a list of almost 120 communities and topic accounts. Facebook, Instagram, Twitterwho worked until August 2017. Authenticity is confirmed by screenshots with posts of groups and individual accounts made from the internal panel of administrators (also blocked). The involvement of the "trolls" in the existing list was also confirmed by the source of RBC magazine, which is close to the leadership of the "factory". In addition, more than half of the accounts in Twitter registered on the numbers with the prefix + 7, it follows from the data of the password recovery service.

RBC magazine also asked linguists to analyze 7 publications from the communities listed on the list. The authors of the posts in many cases were Russian - “enough evidence” of this was found by associate professor at Columbia University Ronald Meyer and his colleague, director of the program for the study of the Russian language Alla Smyslova. They pointed to direct tracing paper from Russian (for example, sitting on welfare - "sit on the manual") and flaws in punctuation like commas in front of the union That (“What”), the absence of articles and, in general, “strange” formulations.

Moreover, the executive director of the school of foreign languages Star talk Ekaterina Chegnova and English teacher Dmitry Bulkin noted that the publications were written "in fairly pure English," so we can conclude that the authors are native speakers. In part, this may be due to the fact that the texts for their posts "trolls" periodically borrowed from real Americans.

Less than 100 people created and posted more than 1 thousand content units per week. Coverage, for example, in the September weeks of 2016, averaged 20 – 30 million. How did the “trolls” manage to interest users with “factory” content?

Letters for export

28 February 2017-st senior presidential adviser Kelliann Conway at the official reception in the Oval Office of the White House sat on the sofa, legs crossed. Her picture against the background of President Trump, who was posing at the moment in front of the cameras along with the leaders of historically black universities (HBCU; created specifically for teaching the African American population), caused an uproar in social networks. Conway was accused of disrespect for the Oval Office, the people of the United States and its president, wrote the BBC.

On the same day, blogger Jenna Abrams published two tweets — her response to criticism of Conway’s behavior. On one was a photo of ex-President Barack Obama, on which he was captured with his legs thrown on the table, on the second - another former US President Bill Clinton embracing Monica Lewinsky. Both pictures were taken in the Oval Office. These two publications by Abrams collected about 1 thousand retweets and almost 1,3 million likes; the post in its article was used by the British Independent. Messages Abrams magazine RBC found on sites Aljazeera, Elle, Business Insider, BBC, USA Today, Yahoo and others. Now account @Jenn_Abrams (registered to a number with the prefix + 7) and website Jennabrams.com locked.

There were dozens of accounts like Jenna Abrams. About ten employees of the “American department” were engaged in the social network Twitter: their task was not the election race per se, but the creation of accounts and flash mobs that would be picked up by major media and key media personnel, says an employee of the “factory”.

As an example of successful projects, he cites the action.2016ElectionIn3Words, allegedly launched on November 7, on the eve of the election: the hashtag offered users Twitter in three words to describe what the election campaigns of the candidates were remembered for, to tell about the expectations. Interlocutor of the RBC magazine assures that the hashtag hit the world trends, and on November 8 show @midnight (went on the American cable channel Comedy Central until August, 2017) used a similar hashtag on the air - television viewers also joined the game. Find in Twitter posts with #2016ElectionIn3Words From 7 November, RBC magazine failed.

Flashmobs were carried out by several accounts - for example, @WorldOfHashtags, @GiselleEvns, @ChrixMorgan, @LoraGreeen and others (all are now blocked), wrote in his Twitter anonym Mort d'trolls. The presence of a number of "center" accounts used for seeding and promotion, told RBC magazine and an employee of the "factory".

But the main part of the employees of the “foreign department” from St. Petersburg was engaged not in gaming hashtags and flashmobs, but in quite serious topics. According to a source close to the leaders of the “factory”, almost all of the American content of the “factory” was not so much for a particular candidate as for “acute social issues”: they supposedly randomly met Trump’s rhetoric - the interlocutor calls this a “correlation” and not direct support. “There was no task to" support Trump. " All current problems were directly related to the actions of the ruling party [Democrats] at that moment. Hillary [Clinton] is her representative, which means she’s to blame too, ”says another. An analysis of hundreds of publications conducted by RBC magazine showed that Clinton was featured in troll posts much more often than Trump.

“Share if you believe that Muslims did nothing on 9 / 11. See how many people know the truth ”(United muslims of americaSeptember 11 2016), "Clinton insists:" We have not lost a single American in Libya. " The four coffins covered with flags were not empty, Hillary ”(Being patriotic, a post about Clinton's attitude towards the national tragedy from 8 September 2016-th). In one of the statements Facebook pointed out that most of the blocked ads “run across the entire ideological spectrum”, affecting LGBT topics, racial issues, immigrant issues, and attitudes towards weapons.

The cumulative number of subscribers to about 120 blocked communities and accounts - almost 6 million people, of which more than half accounted for Facebookabout a third to Instagram, counted RBC magazine. We broke the blocked groups by subject and found out: most often "trolls" raised conflicts of different nationalities, mainly related to the problems of blacks, and political. It was on the promotion of these topics and the advertising budget in social networks.

Dollar Target

“I was banned from being shown on television for being too cruel. Like and share, if you grew up watching me on television, have a gun and didn’t shoot or kill anyone! ”, This publication appeared on March 9 in the community South united. In the center of the post is a picture of a cartoon character, Sam Yosemite (Yosemite sam). The coverage of the post - more than 17 million users, the number of reactions to the publication exceeded 1,6 million, only 3 thousand people hid a post in their tape, nine were marked as spam, follows from the screenshot.

The number of publications from the "factory" in Facebook with similar coverage is calculated in units: for example, more than 17,2 million gathered a post about veterans and refugees in the community Being patriotic.

Indexes over 1 million users reached reached at best 20 posts, similar statistics and Twitter, follows from the analysis conducted by RBC magazine. The number of publications with tens of thousands of views goes to hundreds, but the lion’s share of posts collected 1 thousand views at best.

From June 2015-th to May 2017-th, the “factory” spent at least $ 100 thousand on promoting more than 3 thousand political announcements targeted by American voters (on Instagram - less than 5% of money), said Alex Stamos, director Facebook on safety during a speech in congress. Another 2,2 thousand ad, which spent $ 50 thousand, - under suspicion, he added. AT Twitterwhich follows Facebook He closed the 22 account and found another 179 pcs., no ads have yet been found. Google on their platforms, he pre-counted advertisements for “tens of thousands of dollars” - the corporation links them with the work of the “factory”, wrote Washington Post, with reference to its sources.

The total budget for promotion in social networks was about $ 5 thousand per month, that is, about $ 120 thousand for two years, follows from the internal statistics of the “factory”, which is at the disposal of RBC magazine. These figures are confirmed by the source of RBC within the organization. Employees of the “factory” promoted posts to at least 40 communities: about half of the budget was spent on publications that affect racial issues, a little less - with a political bias.

The interlocutors of the magazine RBC argue: in Twitter advertising was not bought, as it was not bought in Tumblr or Imgur. "We spent a little on promotion Twitter-accounts - they wrote bots to gain weight, but these are scanty expenses, ”the employee of the“ factory ”said. According to him, in communities Facebook the bots were not used because “there is no point in this, real people were needed”, but RBC magazine could not verify this. The fact that reposted publications are real users, not bots, she also wrote The New York Times. Advertising on platforms Google Interlocutors from the “factory” also deny, stating only that “there were tests, but they did not receive any continuation”.

Approximately 10 million unique users from among US residents have seen at least one advertisement created by the structures associated with the “factory”, provided statistics Facebook.

On Savushkina they prefer to measure coverage: in August 2016-th minimum was 15 million per week, in October 2016-th was taken maximum level - 70 million views per week, follows from the internal statistics of the “factory” obtained by RBC magazine at the beginning of 2017- go Facebook in one of his statements, he pointed out that approximately 25% of advertisements from structures associated with the “factory” were never shown to anyone - because of their irrelevance of the audience.

The average CPM (price per 1 thousand impressions) in the US is $ 5 – 7, so the campaign coverage for 10 million people is not very much, it could be done on 30 – 40% more, says Sergey Efimov, director of customer relations at OMD Resolution. Moreover, the audience usually responds much better to posts of a political type than to the usual advertising of brands, which means that CPM may be even lower - $ 2 – 3, the expert adds. CEO Agency One Touch Anatoly Emelyanov says that the subscriber’s price is Facebook it jumps from $ 0,5 to 2, but with a good creative campaign, “the cost of attraction comes to 1 cent for engagement”.

However, a significant part of the advertising budget of the “factory” was not aimed at promoting groups as such, but at scaling up the experience with hot dogs.

Remote rally

In May, 2016 was a famous American activist and one of the founders of the movement Occupy Wall Street Mick White received an email from a certain Jan Davis. He introduced himself as a freelance journalist community BlackMattersUS, dedicated to the problems of the black population, and asked for a telephone interview. The activist agreed, gave his number, but the conversation that finally took place seemed strange to him. “The quality of communication was poor, and the interviewer, in my opinion, was not a native speaker of English,” an activist told the magazine RBC Esquire in 2014, he ranked among the "most influential people up to 35 years."

Now interview with White can be read only on the site BlackMattersUS - community pages in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram with a total number of subscribers over 250 thousand, blocked (available only Tumblr). “Jan Davis” account is deactivated Facebook. The correspondent of RBC magazine sent him a letter to the same address from which he communicated with White, but the “freelance correspondent” did not open it (service data Readnotify). Account @BlackMattersUS on Twitter was registered with a phone number starting with + 7. According to the source of the RBC magazine, which is close to the “factory,” the same people worked with various American activists as they worked on the night shift, responding to comments in groups.

Unlike most of the communities that were led by the “factory”, BlackMattersUS positioned himself as a non-profit news portal with its own editors. Anyone could also support the fighters against racism by sending a donation through PayPal on the wallet tied to the mail on gmail with username xtimwalters. In the editorial, in addition to “Yana Davis”, six more people worked, indicated on the website. The correspondent of the magazine RBC found the accounts of two more "employees" in Twitter: one of them is locked, the other has not been updated from 2016.

BlackMattersUS, 44,2% of the audience that comes to the site from search engines (data Similarweb), managed to collect a whole portfolio of interviews with famous fighters for the rights of blacks. In addition to White, community representatives talked with the legendary member of the Black Panthers movement, Erica Huggins, the mother of black teenager Ramarli Graham, who was killed by police in New York, Professor of Columbia University and Tupac Shakur's godfather Jamal Joseph, as well as I was a part of the age, and I was a part of the age group and I was also a member of the age group. , one of the few survivors of the unprecedented local police raid on 1985 (law enforcement officers dropped a bomb from a helicopter from a helicopter).

Communication with the characters after the interview did not end. The same White received several letters from Ian Davis asking him to support the actions. BlackMattersUS - for example, a flash mob in support of Ramona Africa’s comrades in jail. The essence of the request was to publish photos and videos in social networks with a demand to release them.

In addition, White was asked to distribute through their accounts information about the rally, which was supposed to be held outside the criminal court building in New Orleans on October 14 on 2016: on that day they were to review the case of black man Jerome Smith, sentenced in 1986 to life imprisonment murder. It was planned that after the picket the protesters would go to the hearings indicated on the website BlackMattersUS. To establish whether someone came to the action, RBC magazine failed: event page in Facebook locked.

More evidence remained of the rally against police brutality - the very same 2016 in Charlotte in October two weeks before the election of the US President, which is mentioned at the beginning of this text. Shortly before the event, representatives BlackMattersUS via Facebook came to the local activist Conrad James, the leader of the movement "Life in the ultraviolet." Community employees asked him to help organize the action, James himself told RBC magazine. He agreed, called other local fighters for the rights of blacks and other minorities, and even took a megaphone with him to share.

The rally started with a delay: representatives BlackMattersUS late because we came to Charlotte from St. Louis. The action began a certain Stephanie Williamson, posing as coordinator BlackMattersUSfollows from the video posted on the website of the organization. In addition to Williamson at the rally from the movement attended by a black guy, whose name James did not remember.

A few weeks after Trump’s election in Charlotte, another rally was held, organized by James, along with BlackMattersUS, the activist said: several dozens of opponents of the newly elected president came to him with the slogan Charlotte against Trump. Abrupt changes of position on Savushkin explain their own "indifference" in relation to the one who leads a foreign country.

All in all, 2016 – 2017 in the USA under the auspices of BlackMattersUS About ten events took place, the interlocutor of the RBC magazine, familiar with the activities of the “factory”, said. His words confirm the data from the internal reports of the organization with the shares, they are illustrated with photographs that have never been published before (available at RBC). Locals who participated in the work BlackMattersUS, they did not know that behind the organization there were “trolls” from Savushkin, the current employee of the “factory” and the ex-employee of the “American department” assure. Both insist: no travel from St. Petersburg to the United States was not.

Fighters invisible front

In early January, New York-based martial arts instructor Omovale Adewale received a message from 2017 in Instagram from a certain taylor. He wrote that he represents a social organization. Blackfist (“Black Fist”) and declared its readiness to sponsor free courses on self-defense for everyone. The athlete agreed: from January to May, about a dozen classes were held at the bases of clubs in urban areas of Queens and Brooklyn. Then Taylor disappeared, classes stopped, the athlete told RBC magazine. And in September Facebook and Instagram blocked accounts Blackfist because of suspicion of having links with the "factory".

Under the auspices of Blackfist There were five classes of self-defense: one each in Lansing (Michigan), Los Angeles and Tampa (Florida), and two in New York. Trainers announced weekly classes in their Instagram, period of publication of ads is similar - from January to May. So, in April, 20 training took place, which was attended by about 130 people, follows from the internal report of the “factory”. However, no one came to some classes in New York at all, complained to Adveil in a conversation with RBC magazine. Judging by the photos that the coaches published in InstagramMostly courses were attended by black teenagers and women.

Taylor paid Adweil an average of $ 320 per month: first the money went through "Google Wallet ", then - through PayPalHowever, the sender's name did not coincide with the voiced, the trainer recalls. He did not see the sponsor himself, but once, according to him, a man came to his hall from Blackfist asking how to organize similar courses in Brooklyn. A coach from Lansing, Donte Adams, also said that representatives of “Black Fist” came to him via the Internet. In ads in Instagram Adams constantly pointed out that Blackfist - Sponsor of self-defense courses (in a conversation with RBC magazine, an athlete did not name the amount).

In total, the “trolls”, who appeared to be fictitious names of employees of groups in social networks, managed to form a list of some of the 100 unsuspecting activists - local residents who eventually helped with the organization of offline activities.

Through the communities of the “factory” in the USA, various kinds of rallies and actions were organized around 40, which follows from the organization’s internal reports. Information about some of the events hit the US media after Facebook passed congressional data on blocked ads and accounts. For example, in August 2016 Being patriotic via Facebook invited residents of Florida's 17 cities to actions in support of Trump, at that time another presidential candidate: at least two events took place, said journalists The Daily Beast in an investigation dedicated to Being patriotic.

The costs of the “factory” to pay for the work of local organizers (flights to cities, printing costs, equipment, etc.) were about 200 thousand rubles per month, a source familiar with RBC told RBC magazine. Thus, in two years, total spending could amount to 5 million rubles, or about $ 80 thousand, a little less than advertising costs for promotion in social networks.

"Pure Fan"

Now, about 50 people work for Savushkina in the “American Department”: all these unnamed employees now appear in the publications of the American media almost as the main engines of Trump's victory in the elections.

Representatives Facebook, for which the cost of "trolls" in $ 100 thousand - is less than 0,0004% of the annual advertising earnings, after blocking the communities of the "factory" announced the creation of a whole department to deal with fake news. And on the eve of the next congress speech Facebook placed advertisements in The New York Times and the Washington Post about his role in the election of 2016, where the case with 3 thousand ads from the “factory” was mentioned.

Representatives Twitter US officials blamed for not understanding the importance of the issue after their report to Congress.

Google at the time of delivery, the number did not publicly tell about the results of the internal investigation; the company did not answer the question from RBC magazine whether the data would be transferred to the relevant committees of the US parliament. Representative Twitter refused to confirm whether the social network closed more than 50 accounts, some of which are registered to numbers with the + 7 prefix, noting that this is personal data.

In a conversation with RBC magazine, press secretary Mark Warner, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, “for the time being” refused to comment on the possible consequences of investigating the activities of the “factory” in the US segment Facebook and Twitter. Official representatives of the leader of a similar congressional committee, Davin Nunes, and his deputy, Adam Schiff, did not respond to inquiries.

US President Trump himself twice touched on the scandal associated with the purchase of political advertising in Facebook. Both times his tweets boiled down to pointing out what should have been done instead of considering the content of the advertisements submitted to Congress and then to the Senate. In essence - about the likely interference of the Russian "trolls" in the elections - Trump never responded.

For President Putin, this story was commented on by the press secretary Dmitry Peskov. “We do not know who and how advertises in Facebook, and they have never done this, the Russian side has never been involved in this, ”said Peskov at a briefing with journalists. The interlocutors of the RBC magazine, close to the leadership of the “factory”, insist that “there was no direct cooperation with the staff of the President’s Office (AP)”. The request of the RBC journal, transmitted to Prigogine, remained unanswered.

Meanwhile, the “American department” continues to work, current and former employees told. From the building on Savushkina, 55 is still managed by English-speaking communities with a cumulative audience of about 1 million, according to an employee of the organization. The interlocutor close to the leadership of the “factory” insists: “Could we have influenced the outcome of the elections? .. Of course not. Could the doubting states be on the side of Trump? .. Perhaps, but we were stunned by the results. Why do we need all this? .. Pure water fan. "

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