Gun attacker’s festering hatred of Youtube
Nasim Aghdam, the woman who carried out a gun attack on Youtube’s California headquarters, claimed the company had censored her videos. Her family said they had warned police she might be plotting an assault. Aghdam took her own life in Tuesday’s attack.
THE woman who launched a gun attack at Youtube’s headquarters compared the company to Adolf Hitler, claimed it censored her racy workout videos and suggested there was more free speech in her native Iran than in the United States.
Nasim Aghdam, 39, an Iranian immigrant who described herself as a “Persian vegan bodybuilder”, accused the technology giant of “ruining her life” by not paying her for videos she posted advocating healthy eating, fitness and animal rights.
On Tuesday she went to a gun range to practise shooting before sneaking into Youtube’s offices in San Bruno, California, armed with a 9mm Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun. She fired at random, hitting three people, who all survived, before killing herself.
Ed Barberini, the San Bruno police chief, said: “She was obviously upset with policies and practices of Youtube and this appears to be the motive.”
On Monday, Aghdam’s family had reported her missing from San Diego, where she lived with her grandmother.
The family said that they warned police that she “hated” Youtube and could be headed to its headquarters 500 miles away. Police denied they were warned. At 2am on Tuesday, police found her asleep in her car 30 miles from San Bruno, but took no action.
Aghdam had arrived in the US from Iran as a teenager in 1996, along with her family. She later became an enthusiastic user of Youtube, with several different channels where she posted videos in English, Farsi and Turkish.
They included workout routines, vegan cooking tips, parody music performances, discussion of Persian culture, graphic videos of animal cruelty, diatribes against fur coats and advice not to have sex before marriage.
She also established an animal welfare charity called Peace Thunder and demonstrated outside a military base adorned with fake blood. On a website where she called herself Nasim Sabz she railed against “Youtube staff ” and “close-minded Youtube employees”, complaining that she was receiving hardly any money from advertising.
She wrote: “Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views! There is no equal growth opportunity on Youtube.”
Aghdam was particularly angry about a viewer age restriction being placed on an exercise video showing her working on her abdominal muscles. She said: “They age-restricted my ab workout video. A video that has nothing bad in it. Nothing sexual.”
In one video she donned a headscarf and asked her viewers: “When it comes to freedom of speech do you think Iran is better than the USA or the USA is better than Iran?” As her rants against Youtube became angrier, Aghdam wrote on her website: “BE AWARE! Dictatorship exists in all countries but with different tactics!
“They only care for personal short term profits & do anything to reach their goals even by fooling simpleminded people.”
She then posted a quote attributed to Adolf Hitler – “Make the lie big, Make it simple, Keep saying it, And eventually they will believe it.”
Shahran Aghdam, her brother, said: “She was always complaining that Youtube ruined her life.” He said yesterday would have been her birthday.
In a statement issued on behalf of Aghdam’s family, her father, Ismail, said: “Our family is in absolute shock and can’t make sense of what has happened yesterday. Although no words can describe our deep pain for this tragedy, our family would like to express their utmost regret, sorrow for what happened to innocent victims.”
The family said they hoped for a speedy recovery for those injured in the “horrific, senseless act”.
A man who was injured in the attack remained in serious condition while two injured women have been released from hospital.