By When news broke of an active shooter at the YouTube headquarters yesterday, the same panicked messages from people trapped inside the building and harrowing eyewitness accounts of gunfire began circulating online.
San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini confirmed that at least three victims had been brought to local hospitals and the female shooter, later identified by the media as YouTube user Nasim Aghdam, was found dead inside the office of the video platform with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
This morning the Aghdam's father revealed that she was angry at YouTube because it had stopped paying her for videos she posted on the platform.
YouTube had "stopped everything," and "she was angry," Ismail Aghdam told the Associated Press in a telephone interview, adding that she "hated" the company.
Fortunately the shooting had less tragic consequence than the Parkland, Florida school shooting in February, but the incident has yet again amplified the gun control debate.
While some tech leaders such as Apple's Tim cook and Amazon's Jeff Bezos tweeted their support without wading into the gun control debate, others spoke out about the need for common sense gun laws.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who has in the past avoided commenting on gun control, shared a message which argued, “We can’t keep being reactive to this, thinking and praying it won’t happen again at our schools, jobs, or our community spots.”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi also tweeted to show his support for YouTube and their parent company Google, adding that this was "Another tragedy that should push us again to #EndGunViolence"
Box CEO Aaron Levie sent a tweet with #NeverAgain included, the movement started by Parkland teens in an effort to end gun violence.
Their comments offer further evidence of the widening distance between the Silicon Valley companies, Donald Trump and many of his supporters. CEO's of companies from Tesla to Uber have quit Trump's advisory boards since he took office, and nearly 3,000 employees of companies such as Apple, Google and Uber have signed a pledge refusing to ever work on a Muslim registry.
The power, money and influence technology companies hold appears to concern Trump who repeatedly tweets his issues with Amazon in particular. Despite the heightened fears about their relaxed approach to user's data privacy, as a joined force these companies might be the only groups able to match the behemoth National Rifle Association.
