Police have not named any motive in the blast , but Aghdam has now been wide report to have been very , very raging about the same event as a batch of YouTubers : content moderation , and specifically a waving of demonetization incidents that havekilled ad revenuefor many of the site ’s small creators . ab initio , this news ensue in random uncollectible religion internet weirdos celebrating Aghdam assome kind of martyr . What ’s troubling is that the shooting is now being frame by many media outlets as part of the expectant backlash by little Almighty against YouTube , as though the attempt offer a meaningful takeout food about the situation ’s relationship with its community .
Over the retiring day , a heap of art object have offered this angle . ANew York Timesstory proclaim “ YouTube Attacker ’s complaint Echoed Fight Over Ad dollar , ” saying that the shooting appeared to have been propel by a trend in which YouTube “ clamp down and pulled ads from thousands of controversial videos . ” The report sum “ anger around demonetization has been growing for more than a year , ” bizarrely looping in discontent around consequences for YouTubers who made offensive videos like democratic vlogger PewDiePie .
The Verge suggestedthe shooting made “ hard community direction questions even hard . ” TheSan Francisco Chroniclesaid the onslaught “ foreground ” the conflict between YouTube and its God Almighty , listing pretty much every grievance by users about the site ’s use as gatekeeper .
But — as all of these outlets recognize in requisite street arab lines — none of these other angry YouTubers have armed themselves and shot up the company ’s campus . Aghdam was also a vegan , ofMiddle Eastern heritage , and a bodybuilder . That information may tell us something worth have it away about the gunman , yet — unlike something actually instructive like a tie to a radical ideology — ittells us nothingabout vegans , Middle Easterners , or bodybuilder in general .
Framing the relationship between YouTube and its residential district as of elemental grandness in this incident carries two tight insinuation . One is that the shooting was somehow a consequence of YouTube ’s corporate practices , which requires a logic - defying willingness to condense six degree of detachment into one . The second is that Aghdam is on some degree , even a tiny one , representative of YouTubers frantic about those consequence . This is absurdly unjust to both parties .
While the connection between creator repercussion and the shooting is easy to make , a far more of import one live between this attack and other incidents in which someone has used a gun to inflict their unhappiness on large groups of strangers . Ultimately , these pieces illustrate how the disputation over the United States’gun problemhas become so intractable that percipient now on a regular basis look for whatever else could be to blame rather of the torpedo .
The US is one of the only countries in which this happens with such regularity that experts now dispute whether mass shootings now happen that muchmore frequentlyor are justracking up higher body counts .
If you need a takeaway here , how about this : far-flung admittance to firearms across the res publica makes it simple for anyone with a score to resolve it by going and sample to hit the people they ’re furious at . Those victims could beelected officials , they could beschool students , they could be patrons at agay nightclub , they could beattendingchurchor aconcerton the Las Vegas slip . They could be model in an office at YouTube . Or they could be one of the tens of thousands of peoplekilled or injure by gunsin less high - profile incident each class .
In the closing , the shot is n’t a story about ad tax income , but about how well-situated it is to act on virulent intent in America . So we should probably let the debate over YouTube ’s policies act out without the weight of someone else ’s sins .
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