Shooter felt ‘suppressed by YouTube’
▶ Nasim Aghdam opened fire on three people before turning the gun on herself
A woman who claimed her views were being suppressed by YouTube opened fire at the company’s headquarters in California on Tuesday, injuring three people at random before she turned the firearm on herself.
The three victims – a man, 36, and two women, 27 and 32 – are being treated at San Francisco General Hospital. A spokesman for the hospital said yesterday that the man was critically injured.
The shooter, Nasim Aghdam, 39, is not believed to have deliberately targeted the three.
Police said the motivation for the attack was not clear, although Aghdam had told her family that she hated YouTube and had posted messages criticising the site.
She was reported missing by her father on Monday, who told media that he had warned police she might go to YouTube, which is in San Bruno, south of San Francisco.
Police confirmed the shooter had been found sleeping in her car in a car park about 48 kilometres from the headquarters at 2am on Tuesday.
Officers let her go because she did not appear to be a threat to herself or anyone else, a police spokeswoman said.
A law enforcement official said Aghdam used the name “Nasime Sabz” online. A website in that name said YouTube was trying to suppress its content creators.
Messages on the site read: “YouTube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views. There is no equal growth opportunity on YouTube or any other video sharing site. Your channel will grow if they want it to.”
Aghdam posted about issues such as veganism and animal cruelty alongside exercise videos and glamour shots of herself.
YouTubers can make money through advertisements that accompany their videos. But the company reserves the right to “de-monetise” channels that show what it regards as inappropriate material or have fewer than 1,000 subscribers.
YouTube staff members described the scene as a shooter started firing at people in the courtyard on the campus.
“It was a woman and she was firing her gun,” said Dianna Arnspiger, who was on the building’s second floor when she heard gunshots.
“And I just said, ‘Shooter,’ and everybody started running.
Vadim Lavrusik, a product manager at YouTube, tweeted that he and his co-workers had been barricaded in a room.
In an updated Twitter post, he wrote: “Safe. Got evacuated. Outside now.”
YouTube is owned by tech giant Google and more than 1,000 employees work in several buildings at the headquarters in Silicon Valley.
“Today it feels like the entire community of YouTube, all of the employees, were victims of this crime,” said Chris Dale, a spokesman for the company.
Chief executive Susan Wojcicki wrote on Twitter that YouTube would “come together to heal as a family.”
The shooting has reignited the debate on gun control.