The Sunday Read: 'The Agency'

Published: Sept. 20, 2020, 1 p.m.

According to Ludmila Savchuk, a former employee, every day at the Internet Research Agency was essentially the same.\n\nFrom 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\u2019s popular social networking sites with opinions handed to them by their bosses.\n\nThe shadowy organization, which according to one employee filled 40 rooms, industrialized the art of \u201ctrolling.\u201d\n\nOn this week\u2019s Sunday Read, Adrien Chen reports on trolling and the agency, and, eventually, becomes a victim of Russian misinformation himself.\n\nThis 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.