Recently, there have been reports of a shooting at YouTube HQ. The incident occurred on April 3 with three victims wounded but alive.
Lavrusik, an employee from YouTube tweeted during the events:
Police officially confirmed there were three victims. The attack left a 36-year-old man in critical condition, a 32-year-old woman was left in serious condition and a 37-year-old woman was in fair condition.
So far, the two women have been released from the hospital. Though the male victim is still in critical condition from his gunshot wounds.
It has also been confirmed that the suspect of this incident shot themselves.
As always is, unfortunately, the case with such incidents, a lot of misinformation is being spread on social media. People have been scrambling to get an idea of the motive. Police have disputed such claims that the shooter knew the victims.
The shooter was identified as a female who used a 9mm gun. Furthermore, the perpetrator happened to be extremely active on YouTube. Not only that, but her videos indicated a lot of anger at YouTube.
Not only does this highlight issues with the ongoing gun control debate in the US, but also the fraught relationship between YouTube and its content creators.
The website has undergone many changes within the past year alone. One of these changes being mass demonetization, which some nicknamed the ‘Adpocalypse’.
Companies became increasingly wary over associating their brands with the site. Public scandals are difficult to sell as inoffensive, family-friendly content. This has been a reoccurring problem, as the sheer volume of content that is uploaded to the site means that it’s difficult to effectively judge ‘suitable content’ from ‘unsuitable content’.
As a result, YouTube placed heavier restrictions on videos.
The impact of these decisions has been felt by YouTubers across the board, big or small. These restrictions have been widely criticized, with much citing lack of communication as their biggest issue.
However, this incident appears to be an extreme and deeply unfortunate microcosm of the issues that have been plaguing the site for a while now.
Many content creators, as critical as they have been of the site in the past, have openly expressed their disgust with what has transpired:
This has been a pretty heavy few days for YouTubers, so here’s something a little more lighthearted.
