On April 3, 2018, YouTube creator Nasim Aghdam shot three people at YouTube headquarters in California before taking her own life. The event seems to have gotten a comparably small amount of news and media coverage. Police and family have cited frustration with YouTube’s censorship and monetization policies as Aghdam’s motivation behind the attack.

While of course there was no valid reason at all for such a crime, and the victims of the shooting should be focused on first and foremost, problems with YouTube’s system is nothing new. To understand what drove Aghdam’s attack, one first has to comprehend how YouTube creators generate revenue, and the recent changes they have made. YouTube creators receive money from YouTube when other companies put advertisements into their videos. Thus, the more views your videos get and the longer people play them, the more these ads also receive views and garner attention, and the more money that video makes– for both YouTube as a company and those who partner with them. Therefore, if a video cannot play ads, or if receives copyright strikes, the person who made it does not make any money– and therein lies the problem. In 2017, major policy changes came about when companies realized that in some cases, their ads were played on inappropriate and/or offensive videos. Thus, many organizations pulled out of partnership with YouTube, which led to a crackdown on content that might be mature, and pushed YouTube to enact barriers to enter their Partners Program and put ads on their videos (based on subscriber count, view count, etc).

YouTube Creator and News Reporter Philip DeFranco Reports on the Shooting

These changes brought about a lot of pushback and complaints from creators. Not only are much fewer people making money, particularly those who have to try hardest to grow their channels, but hundreds of larger creators complain about a lack of communication from YouTube about changes in the system, unjustified demonetization, and the simultaneous monetization of videos with content clearly more mature. For example, channels that deliver news might be demonitized for simply covering subjects regarding terrorism, and motivational videos that talk about depression have also reportedly received no payment for simply including any mention of suicide or self-harm. “What adds to the issue is that so many creators, even those with smaller channels, rely heavily, sometimes solely on YouTube as their source of income. When YouTube makes it harder for everyone to make money, they’re not only really hurting their users, but they’re also portraying their platform as a very unreliable place to build a career or garner fame, or just to use altogether. If there ever comes a competitor with a better system, it’s entirely possible that YouTube will be forced to improve or die.” Joselyn Chavez, ‘19

The frustration is understandable, but it’s also important to understand that YouTube is in a hard place too. Detailing exactly how creators generate revenue has lead and will lead to exploitation of the system (some creators will include tags or an image unrelated to the actual content of the video, in order to get more views and to steer searches of buzzwords toward their video). Three hundred hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, and nearly five billion videos are viewed every day. Facilitation of videos on an individual basis is simply impossible, but an alternative process to deeming which films are qualified to have advertisements play on them is an option, and may very well be necessary. “I’d say a better process would be for companies’ ads to be placed on videos that are tagged in a certain way. This enables companies to steer clear of content they don’t want their name associated with, and gravitate towards those they do,” suggests Angel Silva, ‘18.

Nasim Aghdam’s attack was out of frustration over the YouTube monetization system, and while it would might be considered wrong to allow her violence to achieve its goal, both her attack and the issue of YouTube’s policies have both gone largely unnoticed by the media and news outlets.