The woman suspected of carrying out a shooting at YouTube headquarters quoted Hitler in rants about free speech and told her family the site was no longer paying her for her videos.
In one angry post, Nasim Najafi Aghdam said there is ‘no free speech in (the) real world and you will be suppressed for telling the truth that is not supported by the system’.
The 39-year-old, suspected of shooting three at YouTube’s offices in San Bruno, California, before killing herself, raged against the company on her personal website for what she saw as censorship of her videos.
The vegan activist had previously posted videos on a number of different subjects with some highlighting animal cruelty.
But she believed she was being suppressed by YouTube and had told her family she ‘hated’ the company. In one post, she quoted Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, writing: ‘Make the lie big, Make it simple, Keep saying it, And eventually they will believe it.’
The San Diego resident also 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.
Vegan bodybuilder, singer, athlete, artist, and director are just some of the words that Nasim Aghdam used to describe herself. In one video (pictured), she hit out at YouTube for imposing an age restriction on her work out video
One grab from January 15, 2016 shows Aghdam had received 182,776 views while another grab from October 14 that year showed her video had received 94,617 views. She also complained YouTube had placed an age restriction on her work-out video (bottom right)
In one rant against the video sharing service, the vegan activist quoted Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, writing: ‘Make the lie big, Make it simple, Keep saying it, And eventually they will believe it’
‘I’m being discriminated and filtered on YouTube and I’m not the only on,’ she said on the video, later adding: ‘They age restricted my ab workout video. A video that has nothing bad in it. Nothing sexual.’
Her father, Ismail Aghdam, said she was angry at the company because it had stopped paying her for videos she posted to the platform.
He told the Bay Area News Group that he reported his daughter missing on Monday after she did not answer her phone for two days and warned police she might be going to YouTube because she ‘hated’ the company. Mr Aghdam described her as a vegan activist and animal lover.
In the hours after the shooting Aghdam’s online presence unfurled, revealing an intense obsession with YouTube’s policies and her channel views.
Aghdam had multiple YouTube channels, which featured videos ranging from ab workouts to what she claimed was the ‘first Persian TV commercial and music video regarding animal rights and veganism’.
She also had multiple Instagram pages, which Aghdam said she preferred and posted numerous graphic images of animals being mistreated. But it appears that the bulk of Aghdam’s content, especially recently, was devoted to ranting against YouTube and its policies.
Her YouTube, Facebook and Instagram pages were all taken down late on Tuesday.
Aghdam, who identified as Persian, posted videos in both English and Farsi and claimed her latter channel was being filtered by ‘close-minded YouTube employees’
Aghdam seemed fixated on the belief that her YouTube views were sinking, posting screen grabs that showed her views had dropped by more than half in nine months
Aghdam seemed fixated on the belief that her YouTube views were sinking, posting screen grabs that showed her views had dropped by more than half in nine months.
One grab from January 15, 2016 shows Aghdam had received 182,776 views while another grab from October 14 that year showed a video had received 94,617 views.
In one written statement on her website, she wrote: ‘BE AWARE! Dictatorship exists in all countries but with different tactics!
‘They only care for personal short term profits and do anything to reach their goals even by fooling simple-minded people, hiding the truth, manipulating science & everything, putting public mental and physical health at risk, abusing non-human animals, polluting environment, destroying family values, promoting materialism and sexual degeneration in the name of freedom,….. and turning people into programmed robots!’
Quoting Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, she then posted: ‘Make the lie big, Make it simple, Keep saying it, And eventually they will believe it.’
It appears the bulk of Aghdam’s content, especially recently, was devoted to ranting against YouTube and its policies
Aghdam, who had more than 5,000 subscribers on YouTube, had multiple channels on the site as well as an Instagram page. They have all since been taken down
In the hours after the shooting Aghdam’s bizarre online presence has unfurled, revealing an obsession with YouTube’s policies and her channel views
She went on: ‘There is no free speech in real world and you will be suppressed for telling the truth that is not supported by the system. Videos of targeted users are filtered and 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!!!!!’
Details of any payments she may have been receiving from YouTube have not yet been disclosed. But in one post, she circles up a screen shot from a YouTube account showing it had clocked up more than 300,000 views – and pointing out that the revenue for this was apparently just $0.10.
The shooting comes weeks after YouTube agreed to manually review all videos in its ‘preferred’ section so advertisers were sure they were not promoting harmful videos.
As well as manual reviews, YouTube tightened its rules on who qualifies for posting money-making ads.
Aghdam also had a separate Instagram account, which was sometimes censored because she posted graphic videos of animal abuse
Aghdam once joined a PETA protest at Camp Pendleton to fight the Marines’ use of pigs in military-trauma training (pictured)
Aghdam did discuss the company in a past interview with Vegan Idea World, saying that veganism was not just a diet but a ‘belief that affects all stages of life’
Previously, channels with 10,000 total views qualified for the YouTube Partner Program which allows creators to collect some income from the adverts placed before their videos.
But YouTube’s parent company Google announced that from February 20, channels would need 1,000 subscribers and to have racked up 4,000 hours of watch time over the last 12 months regardless of total views, to qualify.
This is the biggest change to advertising rules on the site since its inception – and is another attempt to prevent the platform being ‘co-opted by bad actors’ after persistent complaints from advertisers over the past twelve months.
The changes came just weeks after YouTuber Logan Paul’s video showing the body of a suicide victim reached the site’s trending page before being removed.
YouTube’s new threshold means a creator making a weekly ten-minute video would need 1,000 subscribers and an average of 462 views per video to start receiving ad revenue.