Orthodox blogger Matvey Dorofeev published a video in which he said that he sent his wife a mug in the MAX messenger from work, but she received a video message with an unfamiliar child playing Brawl Stars. His own mug could have gone to a stranger. Experts doubted the veracity of the blogger's statements.
The video, published on a banned social network on Friday, March 27, has already garnered 104,000 views. In the comments, some users wrote that they had encountered something similar, but no one substantiated their words with evidence.
The Telegram channel "War on Fakes," in turn, called the video a staged production and stated that the blogger was intentionally hyping on a sensitive topic. The channel provides several arguments in support.
The first is technical: the blogger changed the speed of individual fragments of the video to hide traces of editing—the insertion of a fragment with a child. Part of the mug with the child is accelerated approximately twice, part of his own mug—four times. When the mugs are brought to a single speed, the timings of both fragments coincide.
The second argument is the lack of mass complaints: if the bug existed, MAX technical support and social networks would be flooded with requests, but only one blogger reported the problem.
The third is the motive: in ordinary times, Dorofeev's posts get 500–800 likes, but the provocative video spread many times wider—including thanks to Telegram channels specializing in criticism of Russian digital products.
Currently, the only source of information about the failure remains the blogger's video, the authenticity of which is disputed. The MAX press service did not comment on the situation.
www1.ru reported last fall that the Orthodox messenger "Zosima" became available for download on Google Play. It is positioned as a platform for communication between parishioners and priests and has strict moderation.