Shooter blamed YouTube for ‘ruining her life’
UNITED STATES: 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 US.
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 Wednesday 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 semiautomatic handgun.
She opened fire 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.’’
Aghdam’s family had reported her missing from San Diego, where she lived with her grandmother, on Tuesday. The family said they had warned police that she ‘‘hated’’ YouTube and could be headed to its headquarters. Police denied being warned.
At 2am on the day of the attack, police found her asleep in her car 50km 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 performed in a leopard-print catsuit, vegan cooking tips, parody music performances, discussions of Persian culture, graphic videos of animal cruelty, diatribes against fur coats, and advice not to have sex before marriage.
Aghdam 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, Aghdam 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, accusing YouTube of ‘‘discrimination, censorship, and suppression’’.
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 simple-minded 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.’’
Ismail Aghdam, her father, said YouTube had ‘‘stopped everything’’ so she had ‘‘no income’’.
Shahran Aghdam, her brother, added: ‘‘She was always complaining that YouTube ruined her life.’’
A man who was wounded in the attack remains in a serious condition, while two injured women have been released from hospital.
– Telegraph Group
‘‘Make the lie big, Make it simple, Keep saying it, And eventually they will believe it.’’
Nasim Aghdam