When news broke of an active shooter on the campus at YouTube's headquarters, the first thought on most people's mind was terrorism. Were terrorists attacking YouTube directly after years of battle online? It seemed plausible.

The truth, however, is even more haunting. A popular content creator with a decent following snapped after YouTube policies caused her to lose followers and ad revenue.

Nasim Najafi Aghdam bursted into YouTube headquarters and shot three random employees of the company, before turning the gun on herself. It is unknown if she had any prior relationship with any of the victims.

Aghdam was a vegan activist who regularly posted videos regarding animal cruelty and living a vegan lifestyle. Sometime recently, YouTube had demonetized her channel, and she claims that they also affected her channel's ability to be found on the site, leading to lost followers.

The demonetization fight

There has been an ongoing war between content creators and YouTube management over new policies enacted by the world's largest video sharing platform. The vague policies have led to a number of popular channels either being demonetized or shut down completely.

Usually, the owners of the channels are unaware of exactly what rules they even broke.

YouTube's defense is that they need to have their content be ad-friendly.

If advertisers don't want their products to be featured in videos that go against their business or moral ideals, that is understandable. However, how YouTube seem to be picking and choosing who gets moved to the top and who gets left behind is upsetting many creators.

Many political channels have had to tread lightly, as even discussing some of the major topics that are dividing people today is enough to get a video demonetized.

It seems that even mentioning a topic that might be offensive is treated the same as someone who is purposefully trying to be insidious.

Where does YouTube go from here?

It is a scary prospect that a disgruntled content creator would lash out at innocent employees of the company is such a deadly way. Hopefully, it does not become a trend, but it will have to be something that YouTube is aware of moving forward.

Many content creators today make their living through their YouTube channels. Demonetizing a video is a harsh penalty, but it is nothing compared to the abrupt shutting down of an entire channel. Messing with someone's livelihood in such a manner absolutely has the possibility to cause someone to snap violently.

YouTube has a right to try and control what content their advertisers spend their money on. That right isn't a blanket approval to arbitrarily pick and choose content though. To be able to stick to their policies, and not alienate their content creators, YouTube will need to be more transparent in their decision making.
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