Ghislaine Maxwell's Possible Reddit Activity
The Claim
Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffery Epstein's partner, owns the first Reddit account to reach 1 million karma.
News posted on
Emerging story
Since Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffery Epstein’s personal and business partner, was arrested and taken into custody on July 2, a connection has been made between her and Reddit account u/maxwellhill. The account is the most prolific in reddit history. It has been active daily for 14 years and accumulated almost 1 million karma, but has remained silent since the day of her arrest. The story has been picked up by hundreds of social media users and subsequently mainstream publication.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation shows that the claim has the potential to be misleading, as there is not enough information available to make a solid judgment. Technically, there is no way to prove whether or not u/maxwellhill is Ghislaine Maxwell without Reddit.com coming forward. It is strong anecdotal evidence for an account that has posted daily for 14 years and has suddenly stopped, and has promoted pedophilia and child pornography, to belong to someone recently jailed for such activities. However, this is not proof and Reddit.com has made no official pronouncements. The evidence may be enough for skeptics and speculators, but not for fact-check news sites.
As time goes on, there will no doubt be more pressure on the site, since the account was such an active user —the moderator of several forums— and if it continues to remain inactive or change its activity patterns dramatically it will raise suspicion. But in the justice system the accused remains innocent until proven guilty, and so there will have to be a significant outcry for any information to be made public or for official investigations to take place. Considering the scope of the situation with Epstein himself, this outcome seems doubtful.
