EXCLUSIVE: Brutalist.Press is a Russian website created by software developer Alex Antonov.
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The website began publishing on 25th August 2016 – 2 months and 13 days before the US 2016 election. and began immediately collating and publishing negative articles about candidate Clinton. Submissions include (but are not limited to):
Brutalist is self-described as a “feminist free social network”. But functions more as an article aggregator. Though the website allows users to submit their own content, most submissions follow a methodology:
The modus operandi of the website appears not to be fabricating content. But rather to garner content from other disreputable or hyperpartisan websites such as TheDuran.com, Counterpunch.org, VoltaireNet.org, etc. and to re-publish them unattributed.
The affiliated Twitter account '@BrutalistPress' seemingly automatically tweets content published to the website. Which allows users to share unfounded and sometimes patently false conspiracy theories and memes to its 42.9K followers.
Conspiracy theories promulgated on Brutalist include: Seth Rich, Uranium One, Voter Fraud (They estimated 1.1 million without offering evidence).
They even got involved in the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign for the release of a classified memo authored by Rep. Devin Nunes.
Main Editor Otto Battista ironically attempted to begin the hashtag #NotARobot to repudiate the assertion that Russian accounts were spreading the hashtag.
The website lists two major contributors. Alex Antonov, the website's creator, and Otto Battista as the ‘Main Editor’. Hours of research failed to return with any traces of anybody called 'Otto Battista' that could reasonably be linked to Brutalist.
Brutalist's contributors have sought in recent months to bolster Trumpian talking points. This has lead to an all out war on the Russia investigation and an attempt to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller at every opportunity.
Ironically on many occasions the website has even mocked the conclusion that Russia interfered in the election at all.
So how do we know the website is Russian? According to the WhoIS registration data the website was registered in Moscow, Russia.
Completely independent of the Brutalist website, Antonov has a private blog where he chronicles his experience learning computer coding. On the website he describes himself as a: “remote software developer from Saint-Petersburg, Russia.”
asiniy.com/about
On June 26th 2017 Antonov submitted a job vacancy advertisement for a ‘frontend developer’ to the Russian website Moikrug.Ru The job comes with a bonus: “In case of successful passing of probation period - periodic paid business trips to St. Petersburg"
You can find the archived advertisement here: moikrug.ru/vacancies/1000…
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