Germany’s legacy media are in shock after it was found that an award-winning progressive blogger they heaped repeated praise on never actually existed.
Julia “Jule Stinkesocke” Gothe — a paraplegic pediatrician in Hamburg — is a famous blogger in Germany who has repeatedly received awards for her writings on progressive issues ranging from green politics to disability activism.
Operating since 2009, her work has earned her many accolades, with German state-owned broadcaster Deutsche Welle awarding her for running the best German-language blog in 2012.
However, it now appears that the famous blogger never existed in the first place.
According to a report by Bild, numerous inconsistencies with Gothe’s life story have been creeping up over the last number of years, prompting some netizens to question the reality behind the allegedly disabled blogger’s online presence.
Alarm bells however really started to go off after one teacher in the country found that all of the pictures allegedly depicting “Gothe” were actually of Kylie Harris, who is described as being a relatively unknown pornstar from Australia.
From there, it was soon revealed that out of the many progressive causes, Gothe had gotten involved with, nobody claimed to have actually met her in person.
Even when she would win awards, the blogger would reportedly never attend the event in person, and would often only communicate with various activists through a third party.
None of these groups or publications appear to have made an attempt to try and independently verify Gothe’s identity before this point.
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The revelation that Gothe appears to be some elaborate fiction drawn up by some unknown author or authors has greatly upset many within the German political sphere, with the fact that the blogger accepted donations for their coverage in particular ruffling some feathers.
“Someone has done the social goal of inclusion a pretty terrible disservice,” ZDFheute reports Green politician and lawyer Peter Heilrath as saying regarding the fiasco.
Meanwhile, the individual who is said to have uncovered the scandal has claimed that the real blog authors were able to get away with the ruse for so long due to Gothe’s status as a disabled woman.
“Why has the research only been done now? Very simple: A wheelchair account is untouchable if you don’t want to be labeled as ableist. You don’t want to risk that,” they said.
Attention has now shifted to the alleged administrator of the blog, who is said to be listed as the website’s sole owner.
Said individual has reportedly declined to comment to a number of media outlets, reportedly sending a legal letter to one publication claiming that Gothe — despite the evidence — is indeed real.
“The allegations are untrue,” the letter reportedly said, before adding that he did not contribute any writings to the blog.
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