In October 2012, Chen exposed the real name and details ofViolentacrez (a moderator of severalRedditjailbait communities), a Texas Internet developer, who was subsequently fired from his job.[7][8] This led to all links to Gawker being temporarily banned from Reddit.[9] In September 2012, Chen acquiesced to demands fromAnonymous and posted images of himself dressed in atutu with a shoe perched on his head. The images had been demanded in exchange for interviews regarding an alleged leak ofApple iPhone and iPad user data from an FBI laptop.[10][11][12][13]
In 2016, he became a staff writer forThe New Yorker.[14] He left the magazine in July 2018.[15]
In October 2012, Chen uncovered the background of Michael Brutsch, a moderator who oversaw several controversial Reddit forums such as r/creepshots and r/jailbait, under the username 'Violentacrez'. He arranged a phone interview with Brutsch during which Brutsch mentioned he had a disabled wife and pleaded for him to keep his identity secret. Though Chen claimed this "did shake [him] a bit",[31] he published an article revealing his name, location, and workplace on Gawker. The next day, Brutsch was fired from his job. This release ofpersonally identifiable information prompted several subreddits to ban all Gawker link submissions from their site.[9][32] When Chen's article was published it became banned site-wide, which Reddit general manager Erik Martin said was a mistake. "The sitewide ban of the recent Adrien Chen [sic] article was a mistake on our part and was fixed this morning. Mods are still free to do what they want in their subreddits".[33] Chen claims that apart from Reddit, response to his story had been "overwhelmingly positive", tellingThe Guardian, "I thought there would be more of a backlash about the story, but people really are willing to accept that anonymity is not a given on the internet and if people use pseudonyms to publish sexualised images of women without their consent, and of underage girls, then there's not really a legitimate claim to privacy".[34] For his article revealing Brutsch, Chen received aMirror Award for Best Profile in the category of Traditional/Legacy or Digital Media.[35]
The public outpouring of hostility towards Brutsch following the exposé prompted commentators such asDanah boyd atWired and Michelle Star ofCNET to question the morality of outing as a way to enforce societal standards online.[36][37] Several commentators have expressed concern that thepublic shaming of Brutsch may serve as an example to others, legitimizing online vigilantism and exposing individuals such as Brutsch to mass retribution.[36][37] Mez Breeze has suggested in The Next Web that, in outing Brutsch, Chen engaged in a type of trolling, making Brutsch "the victim of unwanted bullying and substantial negative attention" as a result of the exposé.[38]
Reddit users accused Chen ofdoxing Brutsch and declared "war" onGawker.[39]
PropOrNot is a group that seeks to expose what it callsRussianpropaganda and published a list of websites they called "bona-fide 'useful idiots'" of the Russian government based on methodology they called "a combination of manual and automated analysis, including analysis of content, timing, technical indicators, and other reporting".[40] Chen was critical ofThe Washington Post's decision to put the story on its front page. He wrote in an article titled "The Propaganda About Russian Propaganda": "The story topped thePost's most-read list, and was shared widely by prominent journalists and politicians on Twitter. ... But a close look at the report showed that it was a mess."[41] Looking more carefully into their methodology, Chen argued that PropOrNot's criteria for establishing propaganda were so broad that they could have included "not only Russian state-controlled media organizations, such asRussia Today, but nearly every news outlet in the world, including thePost itself" on their list.[41]
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