Chen's October 2012 exposure of Violentacrez (aReddit moderator associated with images of underage girls) as Michael Brutsch, a Texas internet developer, lead to all links to Gawker being banned from Reddit.[3] Brutsch was subsequently fired from his job.[4] In September of 2012, Chen acquiesced to demands from Anonymous and posted images of himself dressed in a tutu with a shoe perched on his head. The images had been demanded in exchange for interviews regarding an alleged leak of Apple iPhone and iPad user data from an FBI laptop.[5][6][7][8]
Investigative reporting
Silk Road
In June of 2011, Chen wrote an exposé of Silk Road, a Darknet site which facilitated online drug purchases.[9] Following publication of the article, Chen was interviewed about Silk Road on NPR's All Things Considered. [10] As a result of Chen's investigation, United States Senators Charles Schumer and Joe Manchin publicly called US Attorney General Eric Holder to shut the site down.[11][12]
Facebook
In February 2012, Chen interviewed a freelancer from oDesk, an outsourcing firm hired to enforce Facebook's content guidelines.[13] The article included the guidelines provided by oDesk.[13][14][15][16]
Reddit
In October 2012, Chen's investigative work into the background of Reddit user Violentacrez — a moderator who oversaw several controversial forums such as r/creepshots and r/jailbait — prompted several subreddits to ban all Gawker link submissions.[3][17] When Chen's article was published it became banned site-wide. Reddit general manager Erik Martin told BuzzFeed's Katie Notopoulos that the site had erred in banning Chen's story. "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."[18]
