A disgruntled woman Youtube video-maker has knocked at the Youtube headquarters in San Bruno, opened fire, killed 3 staff members and shot herself to death, all in a few seconds. The stunned employees were seen scurrying for cover and their CEO Sundar Pichai had to dash off a soothing email to all the staff immediately.
The woman identified as Nasim Aghdam of Southern California had been a video-maker posting her videos regularly on her website www.nasimesabz.com which has several Youtube channels. Her videos ranged from vegan food, cooking, workouts to parodies of music videos. In one video, she was described as "Iranian Selena Gomez".
In a video intro, she wrote: "The very first Persian vegan TV commercial and vegan music video was created by Nasim and launched through international Persian satellite television "Andisheh TV" for the first time in April, 2010. I also had TV shows on different Iranian TVs and a regular Youtube channel."
As you scroll down, you will see her frustration over Youtube's unilateral filtering of her videos, which she termed are "dictatorial"."There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!" Aghdam wrote. "Youtube filtered my channels to keep them from getting views!"
On Tuesday evening, her YouTube videos were taken down, apparently by the company. "All my videos are created by myself and I have no help from others," she wrote.
"My Instagram followers, views, likes are real. On instagram, you can buy pages, buy likes, buy followers,.... But mine are real, without advertising or using programs designed to promote instagram pages," she mentioned in another post.
While police are investigating the case, the incident raises another side of the tech boom or video boom seen on Youtube. The tight-lipped Google is witnessing the frustration of channel owners who were once the top producers of videos on Youtube but filtered out gradually.
Perhaps, Google and its CEO Sundar Pichai should wake up to the reality and make amends to their non-transparent and unilateral penalties on websites. Here is his letter to the staff:
Here's what Sundar Pichai wrote to his staff:
Everyone,
Earlier this afternoon, while our employees were having lunch, we received reports of an active shooter at YouTube in San Bruno. Law enforcement and our security team worked to evacuate the buildings and prioritize the safety of everyone there.
The best information we have is that the situation is contained. It's with great sadness that I tell you-based on the latest information-four people were injured in this horrific act of violence. We're doing everything we can to support them and their families at this time.
I'm grateful to everyone inside and outside the company for the outpouring of support and best wishes. I am especially thankful to the first responders and our own security team who acted so quickly to keep people safe.
I know a lot of you are in shock right now. Over the coming days, we will continue to provide support to help everyone in our Google family heal from this unimaginable tragedy.
Let's everyone come together now to support Susan and the YouTube team.
-Sundar
