Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Employees Who Worked at YouTube Say Violent Threats From Volatile 'Creators' Have Been Going on For Years (businessinsider.com)

Posted by msmash on from the real-problem dept.

Anonymous readers share a report: YouTube managers had no way to predict Nasim Aghdam would go on a bloody rampage, but they had plenty of reasons to fear that someone like her might one day show up, say former employees. Aghdam was the 38-year-old, disgruntled YouTube video creator who arrived at the company's San Bruno, California, headquarters on April 3 and began blasting away with a 9mm handgun. She wounded three staffers before she killed herself. Police say leading up to the shooting Aghdam, who was from San Diego, believed YouTube sought to censor her and ruin her life.

This kind of violence is unprecedented in YouTube's 13-year-history, though Aghdam's anger and paranoia aren't unique among the millions of people who create and post videos to the site, according to five former YouTube employees. In exclusive interviews, they told Business Insider that going back to the service's earliest days, frustrated creators -- seething over one of YouTube's policy changes or the other -- have threatened staffers with violence. Typically the threats were delivered via email. At least once, a video creator confronted a YouTube employee face-to-face and promised he would "destroy" him.

36 of 349 comments (clear)

  1. narcissistic personality disorder by Martin+S. · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder with a long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. People affected by it often spend a lot of time thinking about achieving power or success, or about their appearance. They often take advantage of the people around them. The behavior typically begins by early adulthood, and occurs across a variety of social situations.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    1. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by TigerPlish · · Score: 2

      so... every politician, ever?

      --
      The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
    2. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by Lab+Rat+Jason · · Score: 2

      So... exactly the kind of person YouTube encourages to become a "creator" as opposed to the other rif-raf that just occasionally uploads a video?

      --
      Which has more power: the hammer, or the anvil?
    3. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by DickBreath · · Score: 3, Insightful

      For a second there I thought you were describing the president.

      --

      I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
    4. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      There is a degree Narcissism involved if you are going to be a full time content creator. It is a lot of work to do this full time, so stroking ones ego is a form of compensation that helps makes it worth it. This is the same as with many other performers or public facing people. The difference it YouTube is a medium where you don't need to deal the more level headed people who may say "No" or you have gone to far. Or just flat out fire you and retcon in a replacement character. They lack any humility factor. Then combine with the fact how the algorithm ranks videos, controversial/taboo/bold statements will get better views and ranks.

      On my YouTube recommended list outside of my subscriptions I have claims such as...
      Easiest way to remove a tree stump
      Did Captain archer actually commit genocide?
      Solving the Most DIFFICULT Lock Puzzle on the Planet!! - LEVEL 10

      A lot of absolutes in these titles.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    5. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not all of them. Many politicians don't have an excessive need for admiration. They do what they must in order to get votes, but that's it.

      Don't get me wrong here....I agree that all politicians are evil. And that is a matter of logical necessity. The job attracts evil people, and evil people have and advantage over good people when trying to get the job, and even if a good person does get the job the subsequent need to compromise with evil people in order to get anything done has an unavoidable corrupting influence.

      But not all politicians have this specific disorder. The varieties of evil are endless.

    6. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I still find it VERY interesting, that this story dropped off the face of the earth (ok, at least the mainstream news) so rapidly....especially since it hit a major company with such a public face, YouTube / Google.

      I have to think it had something to do with the facts that this gun killing crime didn't fit with the parameters that the left considers more beneficial to their agenda to get rid of guns and enact more gun control.

      I guess it was inconvenient that the shooter:

      1. Was female

      2. Was a foreigner, or at the very least, was not a white guy.

      3. Was a handgun, and not a scary looking black semi-automtic rifle. Nope, a semi-automatic handgun just isn't as scary, so not wanting to press that in the news.

      But still...people were killed, and yet....well, we had no marches, no politicians screaming "think of the children", and calling legal gun owners murderers, or trying to vilify the NRA (which by the way, is made up of and funded by gun owning US citizens, it isn't a faceless evil corporation).....

      Funny isn't it? I think it was news worthy what...maybe 2 days tops?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    7. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by Quirkz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      no politicians screaming "think of the children"

      Maybe because no children were killed in this particular incident?

      --
      The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
    8. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by bws111 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yep, same thing with the Maryland school shooting that happened a couple of weeks ago.

      1. Handgun
      2. Shooter had it illegally, so 'background checks' and 'age limits', etc would not help at all
      3. Shooter taken out by armed security

      That one disappeared REAL fast

    9. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Or maybe because on average there's over 90 gun deaths in the US per day it's not particularly newsworthy (https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-by-the-numbers/#DailyDeaths)? If it didn't happen at Youtube, who would even care? There's no need to jump to conspiracy theory.

    10. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by Dare+nMc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This was a single death with a gun, only the shooter dead, practically a suicide. Their are 60 suicides by gun a day in the us, around 30 homicides a day with guns.

      How loud and for how long do you expect the "liberals" to drag out each of these 90 deaths a day?

      Honestly in a case like this, that doesn't fit the mold and results in a single death, their is little to gain by attempting to address it, and publicizing it makes repeats more likely. When you have 90 deaths a day by guns in the US, and less than 15% of them are by woman, even lower rates by foreigners, much more is to be gained by society to not focus on this unusual situation.

      If anything I am a little surprised no news media focused on how California's laws, making it so much more difficult to get semi-automatics rifles and big clips... may have reduced the impact of this crime, could even have something to do with California being 42nd out of the 50 states in gun homicide rate. And how they have much better reporting of the mentally ill... already makes mass death situations like that one in Florida and one in Nevada less likely. They could have used this one to point out these things again, but maybe all the media are not all a bunch of liberals looking for any reason to vilify those on the right.

    11. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by quantaman · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not all of them. Many politicians don't have an excessive need for admiration. They do what they must in order to get votes, but that's it.

      Don't get me wrong here....I agree that all politicians are evil.

      I disagree with this thinking, I agree that there's a disproportionate number of "evil" politicians, and a bunch more who went in good and were corrupted by the system. But I think there's a lot more who, despite being ambitious, are also genuinely trying to do what they think to be the right thing with integrity.

      I find the "all politicians are evil" to be really counter-productive. It lets the bad ones get away with anything since they're all assumed to be evil anyways. And the good ones aren't rewarded for being good since people assume ulterior motives.

      I think that's one of the things that got Trump elected, he was ridiculously corrupt and dishonest but a lot of people couldn't really register it because they already assumed all politicians to be completely corrupt and dishonest. If anything they found him more trustworthy because the corruption and lies were so obvious people didn't feel deceived and he seemed more honest.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    12. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Posting as AC due to being long-time-reader, and probably my second post in 20 years. Your facts are off. Not that I see any connection between the Maryland shooting in St. Mary's and the Youtube shooting, but I can't help myself because you're wrong on the internet. There's an XKCD for that.

      I live in the next County over and have been following this unusually closely just because it's local. So let's go:

      1. Handgun. Yes. A Glock 9mm, I assume a Glock 19. If I'm not mistaken, such handguns are legally limited to a 10-round magazine in Maryland. I'm not certain because I haven't looked into owning a gun in this state. I'm a transplant from Virginia and am a gun owner. But my current circumstances preclude me from keeping a firearm of any sort in my home. I have seen no reports that the shooter had more than one magazine in possession, so that indicates a maximum possible load of 11 rounds.

      2. Shooter had it illegally. Technically, yes. In the sense that a 14-year-old drives a parent's car illegally. He was not of legal age to purchase or own a firearm of any sort in the State of Maryland. The Glock in question was his father's, who I assume did own it legally. But he couldn't be bothered to secure it in a gun safe, it was subsequently acquired by the shooter, and here we are.

      3. Shooter taken out by armed security. This is a false statement. The shooter shot his girlfriend (or perhaps recently ex-girlfriend). He then shot himself. The "armed security" you speak of was a school resource officer who happened to be unusually close by. The resource officer shot the shooter simultaneously. This was widely reported in the media as an example of good guys with guns ending bad guys with guns. Several days later the coroner's report came out and it stated that the shooter's fatal bullet was his own, not the resource officer's.

      This was not a "school shooting" in the traditional sense. This was an incident of domestic violence. The people involved were high school age so it's reasonable to conjecture that any such domestic violence, involving guns or not, is likely to happen at school. Had they been ten years older it would have happened at home or at work. Had he been slightly less homicidal, he would have beaten her at school. Having been at Virginia Tech in April of 2007, please refrain from accusing me of splitting hairs. I know what a mass shooting at school looks like in some detail. This is not that.

      From the available evidence that I've read (mostly from local, rural, moderately conservative-leaning media) there is no indication that the shooter intended to shoot anyone other than his girlfriend and himself. Since the coroner's report states that the fatal bullet was his own, the combination of these two facts yields the result that the resource officer's actions (actions I support, for the record) led to no difference in outcome.

      Now the real conjecture comes. There's no evidence that I've read to substantiate the notion that this was in play here. But statistically, most domestic violence is a learned behaviour. Most domestic abusers are so because they saw a parent being a domestic abuser. Dollars to donuts, this kid saw that gun aimed by his father at his mother at least once. Mass shootings are perpetrated by someone completed different. Stephen Cho was deeply unhinged, for sure, but I very much doubt he saw one of his parents kill thirty-some unarmed civilians.

    13. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nope. It's remained in the news, as the story has developed. The police released the body camera footage from their earlier encounter with her a few days ago... that made the Friday news. And just this morning, there was a segment on KCBS about possible possible security changes at company campuses as as result of the shooting. But hey... carry on... and don't let a little thing like facts get in the way of your narrative.

      --
      Imagine all the people...
    14. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by MrKaos · · Score: 4, Informative

      Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder

      I've been writing a book on this subject and the impact of the psychological abuse from NPD. One abusive parent is required and one fawning parent who feels guilty about the abuse and tries to compensate.

      with a long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration,

      Also entitlement and imposing their emotional needs onto you via psychological manipulation.

      and a lack of empathy.

      I have to clear this bit up because it's important, especially if you don't want to become a victim. Empathy's traditional meaning is an awareness of other peoples feeling. Somehow, in the modern vernacular, it has been attached to compassion for other peoples feelings.

      To be clear, narcissists do have empathy, however they way they use it to manipulate people better so they can secure narcissistic supply.

      People affected by it often spend a lot of time thinking about achieving power or success, or about their appearance. They often take advantage of the people around them.

      Thinking about it, but rarely achieving it. To be clear, narcissists are losers. They aren't talented enough at anything to be able to get what they want because they are so preoccupied manipulating people around them to get the emotional validation they seek.

      This is the essence of narcissistic supply and everything they do is geared around how and what they have to do to manipulate people into interacting with them that way.

      It's the narcissists sense of absolute superiority that makes them unable to submit to any discipline that would make them good any anything to generate those feelings in people in a genuine way. Everything about the narcissist is their false self and maintaining the perception of it.

      The behavior typically manifests by early adulthood, and occurs across a variety of social situations.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      The correction was necessary because they, themselves were abused over time. If you are going to feel any compassion for a narcissist feel it for when they were a child from age 3-13 when their brains were still plastic and their abusive parent conditioned them to being abused and the fawning parent told them they were special. After this age the narcissist is beyond help because they don't think anything is wrong with them and over time they will drive their victims to complete emotional breakdowns remorselessly and then discard them callously.

      You have nailed it that it is those people that would attack the Youtube staffers instead of being grateful they have a platform. I'm not qualified to make a diagnosis, however the traits are there. Youtube took their narcissistic supply away from them, caused them an un-excusable narcissistic injury, they felt entitled to retribution.

      What I'll point out though is narcissists are conscious of getting into trouble so this person was highly likely to be slipping over to an anti-social personality disorder. It's likely they are diagnose-able with one of these conditions.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    15. Re:narcissistic personality disorder by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Funny isn't it? I think it was news worthy what...maybe 2 days tops?

      Hahaha yes, funny!

      I mean it must be a liberal consipracy to do something. Of course if it was in the news for longer it would be a liberal conspiracy to take your guns. Either way it must be a liberal conspiracy.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
    16. Re: narcissistic personality disorder by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Informative

      If I was him, I wouldn't want the average person (i.e. user of FB) with access to automatic rifles either.

      MOST Americans do not have access to automatic rifles.....they are VERY rare, and aside form having to have very special approvals and tax stamps from the BATF, you have to have the $$ to buy the limited supply of them. Cheapest goes for about $10K these days I believe.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  2. And? by fredgiblet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is this surprising at all? I'm sure that random death threats have been getting lobbed around since antiquity. It's just easier now.

  3. News at eleven by Gaygirlie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unstable people with real need for professional help sometimes end up harming themselves and other people when given easy access to guns.

    1. Re:News at eleven by Train0987 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      An inanimate object didn't kill those people, a crazy person did. If guns didn't exist she would have used something else. That's what crazy people do.

      But please, keep blaming the inanimate object.

    2. Re:News at eleven by OrangeTide · · Score: 2

      It's easier to get a gun than build a bomb, but both are within reach of an average human being. If someone is that bent on planning a violent rampage I don't think the lack of access to guns is going to stop them. I question if a complete ban on all guns in the US would even slow them down or reduce the frequency of occurrence.

      But I also think zero guns, if that were even possible, would very much reduce our homicide rate. You know, the normal murders were people kill people that they know and make up the bulk of the homicide statistics. As opposed to these weird lone gunman cases that make it into the news because they are exceptional. Which I categorize more as a societal and behavioral problem rather than strictly as a gun problem.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    3. Re:News at eleven by hipp5 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeahhhh, except guns are designed for the efficient killing of people. Sure, you can kill people with a shot glass full of water, but it's not like it's going to be easy. There are very few efficient killing machines to which we give people access, other than guns.

    4. Re:News at eleven by pr0fessor · · Score: 2

      It's not wise to bring a gun to an SUV fight...

    5. Re:News at eleven by gnick · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If guns didn't exist she would have used something else.

      You sound very convinced of that. I'm not. How do you know what she would have done without a gun? The gun didn't cause her to become violent, but it made it easier. And the "something else" she might have used would likely have been less effective than a pistol.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    6. Re:News at eleven by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This like the comment above show a shocking level of self delusion and purposeful ignorance. Guns are designed to kill things (sometimes people). Guns are the the most recent design of a very long evolution of tools of war and tools of hunting, designed to kill your target. To deny this is to ignore the very long history of firearms.

    7. Re:News at eleven by GameboyRMH · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well guns are downright shitty at propelling objects at great velocities. A particle accelerator, low-bypass afterburning turbofan, or rocket engine would do far better jobs, depending on the size of the object and how long you want it to go fast. So why the fuck are people using guns for propelling their objects? They only apply thrust/acceleration for a tiny fraction of a second to very specific small objects and the top speeds are garbage.

      But the gun makes perfect sense as a purpose-built deadly weapon, isn't that odd? The projectile is ideally sized for killing people and smaller animals, the range makes sense for use by a human, the speed is decent, it's as if that was its intended purpose throughout history!

      Cars on the other hand are downright shitty weapons. They're designed, to the greatest practical extent, not to kill. They tend to break on impact. Newer ones will stop by themselves if you attempt to drive them into a person or vehicle. You have to attack a dense crowd of people with a vehicle the size of a small house to cause deaths in the same league as a gun could.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    8. Re:News at eleven by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      An object that just happens to be perfectly shaped for penetrating the human body and causing fatal injuries.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    9. Re:News at eleven by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      If you're only interested in assigning the barest of distinctions between guns and automobiles, should we stop requiring any barriers to using a car? No more licenses or insurance?

      You can own a car without a license or insurance, as long as you don't drive it on public roads.

      I do the same with my guns, I do not take them out in public and use them, I only use them in designated, private areas (gun range, or friend's who have land outside of city limits where it is perfectly legal to discharge weapons).

      So, no need to have insurance or license for the possession or use of a gun on private property either.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    10. Re:News at eleven by iTrawl · · Score: 3, Funny

      That one time a guy drove a car over a load of pedestrians from the window of his hotel room... I don't remember that.

      --
      "Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
    11. Re:News at eleven by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      US has more firearm deaths than the entire middle east, combined, does in a year.

      Well, let's make those numbers a bit more meaningful, ok?

      The problem is gun violence....people killing other people, right'?

      So, let's take out the suicides from the US numbers, and then, well...compare the gun violent deaths against the middle east apples to apples and they aren't even close, the US isn't that bad.

      You take out the suicides....and the numbers of gun violent related deaths are less than automobile deaths.

      You refine the numbers a bit more, to take out the gang related deaths, and then well, you just don't see a problem really.

      And countries that seized guns from their citizens...well, other modes of killing rose. Look at London...they have more murders than NYC....and now, it appears, the powers that be there, are looking into more restrictive knife laws.

      Yep, the criminals still have advantages, and the law abiding populace can't really defend themselves.

      But I guess that's ok for you, eh?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    12. Re: News at eleven by martinX · · Score: 2

      ... congregate in the parking lot in departmental clusters for your convenience.

      That sounds like you've put some serious thought into this.

      "Ah, there you are HR Department. Smythe must be in that group somewhere..."

      --
      When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
  4. Re:Unfair by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 2

    Go after the C*O's or stockholders

    Old lady on pension that invests in Youtube assaulted by irate content author. News at 11.

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  5. Re:Humans are garbage. by DickBreath · · Score: 2

    Learn to recycle.

    Humans are fuel for the AIs.

    --

    I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
  6. YouTube treats their creators like shit by MSTCrow5429 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    YT randomly changes policies, which are always vaguely written policies. It's impossible for creators to contact YT for help with arbitrarily (and often wrongly) applied policies. Many otherwise successful moneymakers, for YT first and foremost, suddenly and without warning are thrown under the bus. I've never been a creator, but how many people does YT have to screw over before they screw over the wrong person?

    --
    Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
    1. Re:YouTube treats their creators like shit by eaglesrule · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I hope YT continues to screw over content creators. The best thing that could happen would be if that SJW feminist CEO Susan Wojcicki, who is worth nearly half a billion dollars as she cheats content producers out of income, drops policy bombs until there is a mass revolt.

      It isn't that I want to see such a marvel of a marketplace of ideas burn; it would just be preferable to a death by a thousand cuts in having the producers disperse. A new platform that protects free speech, that promotes content fairly, and is not capricious in dealing with content producers is required. I would gladly pay to access that.

  7. Re: Given the way Youtube acts no surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why do people think they are entitled to an income stream care od youtube?

    Because Youtube makes it appear that they're entitled to that income stream.

    https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/revenue-basics

    For example, the link above claims that "Whether your goal is to earn back some of what you spent making your videos or to become a sustainable business, YouTube’s platform lets you make money with successful videos." Notice that they claim that making YouTube videos can be a "sustainable business".