The tech industry is in a state of shock after a woman armed with a handgun opened fire at YouTube’s San Bruno, California, headquarters yesterday. The shooter has been identified as 39-year-old Nasim Aghdam, who was reportedly “angry” at the company for the alleged demonetization, censorship, suppression, and removal of the videos she posted.
The suspected shooter in today’s YouTube incident has been identified. Please see press release for details - https://t.co/Xvr2l9bB9s pic.twitter.com/NEBoX3WWK5
— San Bruno Police (@SanBrunoPolice) April 4, 2018
The incident, which took place around 12:45 pm Pacific Time Tuesday, saw Aghdam shoot four people, including herself. According to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital spokesman Brent Andrew, the victims include a 36-year-old male in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman in serious condition, and a 27-year-old woman in fair condition. A fourth person suffered an ankle injury while fleeing the scene.
When police entered the building at 12:53, they found another woman, understood to be the shooter, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
It appears that Aghdam held a grudge against YouTube—likely her motivation behind the attack. In an Instagram post from March 18, she wrote that the Google-owned site used 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.”
“There is no equal growth opportunity on YouTube or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to,” Aghdam wrote on her website. “YouTube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views.”
BE AWARE! Dictatorship exists in all countries but with different tactics! They only care forpersonal short term profits & do anything to reach their goals even by fooling simple-minded people,hiding the truth, manipulating science & everything, putting public mental & physical health at risk,abusing non-human animals, polluting environment, destroying family values, promoting materialism &sexual degeneration in the name of freedom,..... & turning people into programmed robots!"Make the lie big, Make it simple, Keep saying it, And eventually they will believe it"Hitler... There is no free speech in real world & you will be suppressed for telling the truth that is notsupported by the system. Videos of targeted users are filtered & merely relegated, so that people canhardly see their videos!
After she disappeared for two days, Aghdam’s family reported her missing to the police. She was later found sleeping in her car in a Mountain View parking lot Tuesday morning. Her father, Ismail, warned authorities that his daughter's anger toward the company could see her target YouTube.
Aghdam’s channels, which covered topics such as vegan cooking, workouts, animal rights, and music video parodies, have now been removed by YouTube.
The tech world has offered its support to Google and all those affected.
From everyone at Apple, we send our sympathy and support to the team at YouTube and Google, especially the victims and their families.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 3, 2018
Horrible and truly tragic day for YouTube and Google. We are wishing all our very best for the injured and all those affected.
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) April 3, 2018
On behalf of the team at @Uber, sending support to everyone @YouTube and @Google, and gratitude to the heroic first responders. Another tragedy that should push us again to #EndGunViolence
— dara khosrowshahi (@dkhos) April 3, 2018
President Trump also tweeted about the shooting.
Was just briefed on the shooting at YouTube’s HQ in San Bruno, California. Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved. Thank you to our phenomenal Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders that are currently on the scene.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2018
Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent the following note to all Google employees.
Here is the note that @sundarpichai just sent to Googlers worldwide. pic.twitter.com/bdC6KeTl9c
— Google Communications (@Google_Comms) April 3, 2018