Internet celebrity Nasim Najafi Aghdam identified as YouTube shooter, likened YouTube to Hitler
The woman who injured three people during a shooting at YouTube headquarters in Northern California has been identified as Nasim Najafi Aghdam. After shooting three people at the tech campus in San Bruno on Tuesday, she killed herself with a handgun.
Aghdam, 39, was a resident of San Diego, according the police statement which noted that “The San Bruno Police Department is investigating a motive for this shooting. At this time there is no evidence that the shooter knew the victims of this shooting or that individuals were specifically targeted.”
Nasim Najafi Aghdam
“We know very, very little right now, and we probably won’t know more until tomorrow morning,” San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said.
Mercury Newsinterviewed Aghdam’s father, who said that before the shooting he he had informed police that his daughter had gone missing and she might be at YouTube because she “hated” the company for demonetizing her Avideos.
Aghdam’s father said that she had grown angry after YouTube reduced her ability to earn ad 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.
From her website’s homepage: “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, 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” Adolf Hitler… There is no free speech in real world & you will be suppressed for telling the truth that is not supported by the system. Videos of targeted users are filtered & merely relegated, so that people can hardly see their videos! There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!”
Aghdam said YouTube had imposed an age restriction on her ab work out videos because it was deemed too racy. She claimed that some YouTube videos featuring singers Miley Cyrus and Nicki Minaj were ‘inappropriate’ for children but were not subject to the same restrictions.
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 (One is titled “Animals are skinned alive on Chinese fur farms”). Yet others showed her doing simple workout routines.
