Social Media Etiquette

Daniel Alejo

Stockton University

Authors Note

This research paper was prepared for GEN 2243 Exploring Your Digital Portfolio taught

by Professor Calderwood.
 Abstract

This research paper will be discussing how Claira Janover lost her job at Deloitte. First, it

will give an introduction of Claira Janover and some background information about her

education. Then, it will provide some information about what is happening in our world today

with the “Black Lives Matter” movement and a description of the TikTok she shared. Following

that, it will provide you with some background knowledge of Deloitte, followed by the

consequences that were given to Claira for publishing a TikTok. Lastly, it will give you an

update on Claira’s life today and an overview of how I would have handled the situation.
 Introduction

Claira Janover is a 21-year-old Tik Tok Star raised in Newhaven, Connecticut. She

graduated from Branford High School in the year 2016. After attending Branford High School,

she planned to continue her education at the prestigious ivy league school at Harvard University.

Harvard University is located in the beautiful town of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some fellow

Alumni of this school are Mark Zuckerberg, Conan O’Brien, Theodore Roosevelt, and Barack

Obama. According to U.S News (2019), Harvard University was ranked the #2 best universities

in the Nation, only behind Princeton University. For someone to attend a prestigious school like

this, they must have a strong resume that includes community service, outstanding academic

success, and high test scores. Claira was able to excel in high school and for that reason was

allowed to continue her education at Harvard University. After 4 years at Harvard University,

Claira was able to earn a bachelor's degree in Government and Psychology in May of 2020.

While attending Harvard University, she began to grow a fan base on TikTok. TikTok is

a social media platform where you can share short videos with your followers. TikTok recently

has become more relevant then ever and is now one of the most used social media platforms in

the world. Everything was going well with Claira on TikTok, she was becoming relevant and

gaining thousands of followers daily. Until one day she spoke upon a very sensitive topic and

shared her thoughts on it with her 400k followers. Little did she know this was going to be one of

the worst decisions of her life.

 What happened?

Right now in the world, we are dealing with something that should have never been a

problem. Unfortunately, social injustice has been occurring throughout the United States. Many

unfortunate events have occurred this year and no severe consequences were given to those who

enacted the action. The killing of George Floyd on May 25 of 2020 ignited a march for equality.

On May 25, A Minneapolis police officer abused his power and decided to become physical

against Floyd, He then put his knee on George’s neck and suffocated him to death. This caused

headlines across the United States and this was the beginning of protests across the nation

against racism and police brutality. According to CBS News (2020), 164 black citizens of the

United States's lives were taken away by a police officer from January to April of 2020. Claira

Janover did not keep her opinion to herself and decided to share what she thought about all of

this to her followers on TikTok. As mentioned before, Claira has built a large fanbase with about

400k followers on TikTok. On June 5th of 2020, Claira uploaded a 15-second video where she

said “The next person who has the sheer nerve, the sheer entitled caucasity to say ‘All Lives

Matter’: Imma stab you. Imma Stab you, and while you’re struggling and bleeding out, Imma

show you my papercut and say: ‘my cut matters too.” Her TikTok began to surf across all social

media platforms and many viewed this as a threat. Those who viewed this as a threat, According

to Janover (2020), began to contact the FBI, Homeland Security, and Boston Police Department

so she could be arrested. This TikTok video was posted just a few months before she was going

to begin her career with Deloitte.

 Why is Deloitte prestigious?

Deloitte, founded in 1845, is one of the largest accounting organizations in the world,

with its headquarters located in London, England. According to Deloitte (2020), Deloitte

specializes in providing services to corporations such as audit and assurance, consulting, tax, and

financial advisory. For example, Deloitte provides services to corporations such as Metlife,

Morgan Stanley, Berkshire Hathaway, Microsoft, Boeing, GM, and many other well-known

large corporations. According to Vault (2020), Deloitte also provides its services to about 90% of

the Fortune 500. With over 310,000 employees, Deloitte in 2020 was able to bring in a revenue

of 23 billion dollars, according to Deloitte (2020). Some of Deloitte's latest awards include

Universum Most Attractive Employers in the United States, FORTUNE’S Best Work Places in

Consulting and Professional Services, Vault Accounting 50, and FORTUNE 100 Best

Companies To Work For. This prestigious company receives over 500,000 applications per year,

making it very difficult to obtain a job at Deloitte.

What were the consequences?

Claira Janaover was anxious to begin her career at Deloitte due to the representation they

have established around the world. Due to her infamous TikTok video, Claira was never able to

even begin providing services to Deloitte clients. She was fired before even having her first day

of work. According to Feis (2020), she broke the news by publishing a TikTok video saying “

Standing up for Black Lives Matter put me in place online to be seen to be seen by millions of

people, The job I’d worked hard to get and meant a lot to me has called me and fired because of

everything”. As seen in her TikTok video, she was tearing up and all her emotions were coming

out after receiving the call from Deloitte. According to Feis (2020), she blames the loss of her
job on Trump supporters, she claims that she has also received death threats, as well as rape and

violence threats. As mentioned in the article Feis (2020), she will continue to use TikTok as a

way to advocate what is going on in our world today with systematic racism. She worked so hard

all her life for this day and got fired just because she shared her thoughts with the public.

According to Issitt (2020), nowadays about 70% of employers tend to use social media as a

background check when interviewing a potential new candidate. In addition to that, according to

Becton, Walker, Gilstrap, Schwager (2019), about 50% of potential new candidate applications

are rejected after checking out their social media accounts. This information shows that we as

social media users must be cautious of what we share on our social media accounts. We might

not think that a picture at a bar with your friends that we share on Instagram could not affect us

in the future but you never know, it could come back one day to bite us and potentially lose a

chance at obtaining a job. After losing her job, her best friend Eric Cheng from Harvard

University decided to launch a GoFundMe Page to raise money for her financial needs.

According to Brown (2020), the fund that was established for her was named “The Claira

Janover is Incredible fund”. Within the first few hours, the fund was able to receive hundreds of

donations and was at $4000. Aside from that she also shared a TikTok video with her Venmo

asking for donations.

Conclusion

Although many rumors were said, Claira Janover is still enrolled at Harvard University

and is continuing to take classes virtually. To this day, she continues to upload videos on TikTok

about her daily life, and every once in a while talks about her story with Deloitte.
 If I were the administrator of Deloitte, I would have decided to still bring her in and not

fire her. I say this because everyone has their own opinion on things and everyone makes

mistakes. Let’s be honest here, she wouldn’t kill someone. Her emotions got the best of her and

it caused her to bring out her anger on TikTok. Deloitte does not just hire anyone. She was

accepted for a reason, over 500,000 applications were sent to Deloitte and it was obvious her

application caught their eye. I would just sit her down for a meeting and let her know that all she

needs to do is focus on her clients and keep her thoughts to herself at work. If I were in Claira’s

shoes, If given a second chance I would make sure that I would not take it for granted. Mistakes

happen and although it was just a joke, it’s never smart to talk about murdering people on social

media. If not given a second chance, I would then start looking at other organizations similar to

Deloitte. As a Harvard student, I could not picture it being that hard to secure another job

elsewhere due to having a strong resume.

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