The woman who opened fire at YouTube’s California headquarters during lunchtime on Tuesday, wounding at least three, including her boyfriend, before k
The woman who opened fire at YouTube’s California headquarters during lunchtime on Tuesday, wounding at least three, including her boyfriend, before killing herself, has been identified as Nasim Aghdam, a 39-year-old resident of San Diego, California. According to Nasim Aghdam’s father, he had before the shooting, informed police that his daughter had gone missing and might be at YouTube because she hated the company warning the police that she “might do something” after officers spotted her sleeping in a car in Mountain View hours before the shooting.
Nasim Aghdam was a prolific YouTuber. According to Buzzfeed and NBC, she published numerous videos in English, Farsi (her family is Iranian-American), and Turkish. A vocal animal rights activist, some of the videos showed Aghdam making vegan recipes, while others showed graphic images of animal abuse yet others showed her doing simple workout routines. Aghdam’s pages on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are no longer accessible, but her website remains up and running.
Aghdam’s father said that she had grown angry after YouTube reduced her ability to earn advertising revenues from her videos. Many of her videos reportedly showed her complaining about what she believed was censorship on YouTube, and she alleged on her website that the video platform was targeting her unfairly. The YouTuber’s brother told The Mercury News she had been reported missing since the weekend and had stopped answering her mobile phone.
“She was always complaining that YouTube ruined her life,” he said.
After realising she had travelled hundreds of miles across the state to Mountain View, the brother said, “I Googled ‘Mountain View’ and it was close to YouTube headquarters. And she had a problem with YouTube. So I called the cop again and told him there’s a reason she went all the way from San Diego to there, so she might do something. So they didn’t do anything, and she got killed … and three or four more people got hurt.”
According to NBC, she says in a video posted in January 2017 that YouTube “discriminated and filtered” her content. In the video, Aghdam reportedly says her channel used to get lots of views but that after being “filtered” by the company, it received far fewer views. She complained YouTube had imposed an age restriction on one of her workout videos because it was too racy, yet it hadn’t taken the same action for stars like Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj, whose videos, she said, were inappropriate for children.
“I am being discriminated on and filtered on YouTube and I am not the only one,” she said.
“There is no free speech in real world and you will be suppressed for telling the truth that is not supported by the system,” she wrote in one post. There is no equal growth opportunity on YouTube or any other video sharing site.”
In an Instagram post dated March 18, Aghdam complains again about YouTube’s alleged censorship, saying it was using its tools to “censor and suppress people who speak the truth and are not good for the financial, political gains of the system and big businesses.”
Her most recent YouTube video came three weeks ago and was titled “Leg Exercises At Home Fitness.”
