In an incident on Tuesday, April 6, a woman furious with the video-sharing platform YouTube allegedly opened fire at the company's headquarters in northern California, injuring three people before killing herself.
Identified by police as Nasim Najafi Aghdam, the suspect in Tuesday's shooting at YouTube headquarters in northern California had been a prolific creator on the site, posting hundreds of videos to a channel that acquired some 30,000 subscribers. Aghdam's grievances against YouTube, which is owned by Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL), reflect a growing tension between the influential video-sharing site and the individual content creators that use it.
Armed with what police have identified as a Smith & Wesson 9mm semiautomatic handgun, the 38-year-old suspect wounded three at the company's offices in San Bruno, CA, shortly after noon on April 3, before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The victims were taken to San Francisco General Hospital, where a hospital spokesman described them as a 36-year-old man in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman in serious condition, and a 27-year-old woman in fair condition.
A number of YouTube employees posted tweets during the shooting and in its aftermath, reporting their experiences of the traumatic event.
In a press conference on Wednesday, San Bruno police chief Ed Barberini told reporters that Aghdam had been "upset with the policies and practices of YouTube." According to reports following the shooting, Aghdam was angry at the video-sharing site for de-monetizing her videos. In posts to her social media accounts, Aghdam claimed that YouTube was deliberately filtering her videos "to keep them from getting views." On the night after the incident, the suspect's brother, Shahran Aghdam, told reporters that his sister "was always complaining that YouTube ruined her life."
Aghdam, whose online profiles describe her as a vegan and a bodybuilder, posted videos on YouTube on a range of topics, including animal rights, veganism, and fitness. She was active on a number of social media platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook (NASDAQ: FB), and also maintained a now-defunct personal website.
Policy changes enacted by YouTube last year have made it more difficult for the smaller content creators to continue profiting from the site. Since the early days of its history, the video-sharing platform has attracted and relied on the content made by artists, video bloggers, and other individual users. Those whose videos were popular enough were able to monetize their channels, collecting advertisement revenue as a part of the YouTube Partnership Program.
But in recent months, in the wake of high-profile scandals, including the infamous Logan Paul video filmed in Aokigahara Forest, YouTube has moved toward new, stricter regulations to better monitor and manage the content uploaded to the site. Many users have complained that the platform has flagged more and more of their videos as unsuitable to advertisers, which has often led to the de-monetization of their channels. Vloggers and artists with smaller followings have complained that the site's harsher stance on policing videos has been accompanied by a haphazard approach that is especially harmful to small and niche content creators.