Source
r/serialpodcastorigins•
MightyIsobel

Sockwatch -- I'm glad janecc spoke her mind(s)

Nutshell

Events related to janecc and her sock accounts are often invoked in Serial communities without further explanation. This post is a round-up of what we know about the user janecc and her use of alts in the Serial subreddits.

This post has nothing to do with the murder investigated in season 1 of Serial. It is about understanding the community of social media participants that sprang up around the podcast (the "fandom").

##Early Posts

Janecc was a user on r/serialpodcast in the earliest discussions of Season 1. She claimed to be a lawyer, had verified "lawyer" flair, and discussed legal topics. Here are some posts and comments from janecc from 2014-2015:

Janecc was notably active around the noisy departure of Adnan's friend Krista from r/serialpodcast. She encouraged an emotional, outraged response, and enthusiastically shamed specific people she disagreed with for challenging her preferred narratives and arguments.

Janecc was so enthusiastic, it turns out, that the janecc account was shadowbanned apparently for rule-breaking use of alts.

The user deleted the accounts that were caught: janecc, samdolgoff, and veganspicegirl. Meanwhile, in private discussions, she confessed and offered to share technical tips about circumventing reddit's site-wide rules against vote manipulation and ban evasion.

tl;dr: By her own admission, janecc broke site-wide rules to manipulate the Serial audience in support of Adnan's "exoneration" narrative.

##Secret Sub Meltdown

Janecc's involvement in the early 2015 creation of r/NarcoticsUnit was apparently revealed in exposé-style posts in public spin-off subreddits. Many readers find these accounts confusing; Jane was one voice in a multi-sided, often incoherent rehashing of old injuries. Primary sources are linked here for what they're worth.

User Creepologist released a number of screenshots apparently from the backchannel discussions of founding r/NU. A selection that connect janecc to her alt account theodoreadorno, and to the creation of r/NU, are linked here:

In the outbreaks related to intra-sub drama, a list of users allegedly sharing an IP address with janecc was released. janecc maintained that the list was inaccurate. And the methodology for compiling the list was never properly explained.

But still, anxiety about Janecc using sock puppet accounts to infiltrate the private subreddits resulted in users facing unreasonable burdens to prove their personhood. For example, this user is probably not a jane sock: https://www.reddit.com/r/serialpodcast/comments/300w66/parting_thoughts_on_speculation/ (more) (more)

##Later Activity

After the janecc account was shadowbanned, the user returned to the community with the account theodoreadorno:

A sample of theodoreadorno's contributions 2015-2016 is linked here:

#####About Syed and Undisclosed:

#####Teddy Talkz

#####Fandom drama stuff:

#####Additional claimed accounts

##Is Janexo the same user?

Janexo is another suspected sock account of janecc/theodoreadorno.

However, janecc/theodoreadorno suggests that janexo is not her account.

Links to sample activity:

Was Janexo socking in a sub where theodoreadorno is a moderator?

I am not persuaded by these examples that Janexo is the same user as janecc but YMMV.

##Conclusion

Janecc's engagement in the Serial-focused communities prefigured some of the ongoing toxic behaviors that became prevalent here. Janecc taught everyone an unforgettable lesson about accepting anonymous users in good faith. Her willingness to lend her professional credibility to the FreeAdnan propaganda seemingly enhanced the appearance of a righteous groundswell of support for Syed, if not to outsiders, then at least to the fans swayed by the "exoneration" pitch. Her enthusiastic adoption of Rabia's core tactic -- aggressively attacking the sanity and intentions of people who disagreed with her -- contributed materially to the growth of "toxicity" in the community. And Janecc's unreliability appears to have fed (or provided a convenient excuse for?) the paranoia that plagued the organizers of private innocent subreddits from the very first moments of their creation, including their wholly unsubstantiated allegations that State agents were active on reddit and had infiltrated private innocent subreddits (more).

In her later role as a moderator and contributor on r/theundisclosedpodcast, jane continues to discuss legal topics from a strongly pro-Adnan point of view, to cheerlead for big name fans and credentialed commenters, and to promote talking points about the toxicity of guilters. In her defense, however, many of the wrongs attributed to janecc by redditors from various "sides" cannot be reliably traced to janecc. And if she continues to participate in discussion of the legal issues in Syed's appeal, her alts have not been publicly detected breaking reddit's rules or stirring up drama.

As I said up top, none of this has anything to do with the events of January 13, 1999 or #justiceforanybody. In the context of communities building themselves around true crime websleuthing, I do think it's worth looking at how the policies of a platform like reddit can be manipulated for PR purposes, and that documenting examples of outlying influential behavior helps us all understand true crime "fandoms" better.

Next post: Ritzs_Mustache_Ride is a good person

Posted Jan 14, 2017, 2:43 PM UTC · edited

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