Claira Janover didn’t anticipate that the little video about “All Live Matters” arguments she posted with her over 250,000 followers on TikTok would rock her world.
The 24-year-old Janover was brought up to be frank, particularly when it came to matters of social justice and equality.
But Janover said that she is “totally averse to the concept of ever becoming a prominent person on the internet again” after being doxxed online and losing a job opportunity.
“My mother was quite politically engaged when I was a kid. She was a public high school history teacher who also taught African American studies, women’s studies, and gender studies, according to Janover, who spoke to Insider.
“I attended neighborhood meetings and voting booths as a child. I also participated in demonstrations with my mother when I was younger, and I continued to do so throughout high school and college.
Janover composed a TikTok video responding to remarks saying “All Lives Matter,” a phrase coined in reaction to the “Black Lives Matter” campaign, in the wake of the police shooting of George Floyd and widespread demonstrations.
At initially, the video hadn’t gotten a lot of bad feedback.
In reaction to a different TikTok video showing Janover carrying out a chat with an imaginary Trump supporter, far-right political activist Jack Posobiec posted a comment.
According to an earlier article by Insider, she said that Trump supporters were “implicitly homophobic, transphobic, and xenophobic” in the video.
Posobiec said in the tweet that included a link to the video, “Leftists are now talking to phantom Trump fans instead of talking to real Trump supporters”.
Posobiec’s tweet, according to Janover, directed people to her TikTok and another video she created on “All Lives Matter” approximately a month earlier.
She compared “All Lives Matter” and “Black Lives Matter” in the video to people who had a papercut and others who have been stabbed.
Janover added in the video, “The next person who has the sheer audacity — the sheer caucasity — to scream ‘All Lives Matter,’ I’mma stab you. I will stab you.
And when you’re bleeding out, I’ll show you my paper cut and tell you that “my cut matters, too,” Janover made light of the situation in the video.
People started emailing Janover death and rape threats, she told Insider. Online people started calling for her to be fired and naming her employers. Some people said that Janover’s statement threatened violence, and they asked that she be held responsible.
Janover said that her “All Lives Matter” TikTok video was created with humor and hyperbole, never with the intention of inciting violence.
“I was receiving like tens of thousands of incredibly offensive and repulsive texts. Then they developed into threats of rape and murder, she said.
Janover said that once her address was published online, she moved to an apartment complex with security under a false name.
Online users called for her to be fired in messages that mentioned her employers.
She obtained a job offer from Deloitte during the time she was a Harvard University student. Janover said to Insider that she submitted a “very lengthy, very detailed email” to the corporation to describe what transpired online while she dealt with a flurry of conversations.
Janover said that when the online hostility became worse, more individuals started naming Deloitte in postings where she was living with a friend’s family. Parents of her friends gave her the advice to “get ahead of it.”
I’m sorry if this name is being associated with you due to my LinkedIn profile, which had also been going viral, she continued. Additionally, I wanted to reassure them that I wasn’t encouraging any kind of violence.
Janover said that she submitted an email with images of the death threats she had received, threatening comments sent to the Facebook account of her deceased mother, and Nazi propaganda memes that were being circulated about her to the HR department at Deloitte.
Janover said that being an Asian-American woman was also a factor in the threats and remarks she received.
These were not simple ‘I hate you’ communications. The phrase “I’m going to come kill you and your family” was used often, but it was also often followed by a detailed description of various ways they would harm me, such as sexual violence, rape, and gang banging. So it was something that I know wouldn’t have been delivered to a straight man in any of those communications,” she added.
When she requested to join a Zoom call after receiving a response from Deloitte, she claims she was informed that the firm “cannot have someone work for us who in any shape, manner, or form advocates or promotes violence, even if it was satirical.”
The employment offer was withdrawn despite efforts to explain her remarks and the negative response. She said that the call was over in less than a minute.
She left and stopped using social media.
Janover, an only child who grew up with a single mother who passed away from cancer in 2019, claimed she was able to persevere despite the dangers because she had no one else to worry about.
She observed, however, that she started to feel alone as some people stayed away from her out of fear for her safety.
Janover claims that she feels safer two years later. Since receiving her Harvard degree, she has worked on President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.
“It was a really chaotic moment that flew by. In the end, I ended up working full-time for the Biden campaign in California in 2020. So I worked with Gen Z for Change, which is now its own really fantastic group, while having my base with the California Dems, she added.
Janover said that despite the verbal abuse she received, she was still able to contribute to the job she was passionate about. She didn’t attempt to restart her TikTok account when it was compromised in December 2020, however.
I was very happy to stop making stuff, Janover stated.
She chose to spend her time outdoors with her large family in Wyoming.
The time spent outdoors and away from civilization had an impact on the classes she chose to complete her Harvard degree in the spring of 2021. For the remainder of 2021, Janover said that she ultimately applied for and took travel fellowships.
The capacity to be torn down and forced to rebuild, according to Janover, “gave me freedom to take a step back that I don’t believe I would’ve had or really dreamt of as a possibility or a reality.”