YouTube Shooter: Animal Rights Vegan Activist Hated YouTube
04-04-2018
A woman who believed she was being suppressed by YouTube and "hated" the company opened fire at their headquarters Tuesday, wounding three people before taking her own life.
Investigators say they don't believe Nasim Aghdam specifically targeted the three victims she wounded Tuesday. But it is now very clear that she had a longstanding dispute with YouTube.
Aghdam had tens of thousands of subscribers on her many YouTube channels and millions of page views.
She made hundreds of exercise videos, music videos, and videos focusing on animal rights and veganism, posted across multiple channels in several languages.
Some of her videos seem to poke fun at the YouTube platform and herself. In one she says, "Make a stupid video. The more stupid videos you make, the more successful you will be."
But she was angry with her treatment by YouTube, and drove to the company's San Bruno, California campus and opened fire.
Two women and a man were shot. Co-workers scrambled to help them, using tourniquets to stop the bleeding from gunshot wounds.
Then police and a SWAT team moved in and Aghdam killed herself.
Aghdam had long complained that YouTube was censoring her and taking away her ad revenue.
She said in one video, "I'm being discriminated and filtered on YouTube and I'm not the only one."
Aghdam most recently lived in southern California with her parents and a husband or boyfriend.
A neighbor, John Rundell, said, "She did some painting on the house and stuff like that. Very nice people."
Her brother says the family grew concerned when she drove all the way from southern California to northern California hours before the shooting.
Her brother told reporters, "She had a problem with YouTube. So I called the cop again and told him that she went all the way from San Diego to there."
Aghdam's father had reported her missing Monday and warned police that she hated the company. Mountain View police had found her asleep in her car and confirmed who she was, then let her go because she didn't seem to be a threat.
The incident is sure to reignite the debate over gun laws and the Second Amendment, coming so soon after after the massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida that left 17 people dead.
And it's also likely to start many businesses talking about workplace security.
