YouTube threat shooting campus

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Man arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot YouTube employees

It’s only been 13 months since a woman opened fire at the California campus.

 

Josh Katzowitz

Layer 8

Posted on May 21, 2019   Updated on May 20, 2021, 12:10 pm CDT

Thirteen months after a shooting at YouTube headquarters that left one person dead and three injured, a Utah man was arrested for allegedly threatening to do the same.

The Salt Lake City Tribune reported that police arrested 35-year-old David Swanson for making terroristic threats, a felony, after allegedly leaving menacing comments on YouTubers’ vlogs.

Police said Swanson on April 30 wrote this threatening comment on the video where PewDiePie asked his fans to end the “Subscribe to PewDiePie” movement.

He was apparently upset about YouTube (and other tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook) falling for what he called a “leftist ideology.” Swanson allegedly wrote that YouTube was also upset that a figure like PewDiePie was influencing his followers to move away from the apparent left-leaning philosophies Swanson believed YouTube proselytizes. Swanson wrote that the only way YouTube’s executives would not be killed is for them to “start following the spirit of the U.S. [C]onstitution.”

He said he’d shoot them from his car as they exited the building. Swanson told police that he meant “a video shoot or taking pictures,” but police said he admitted that he had driven to the Bay Area with a firearm in his possession two weeks after commenting on PewDiePie’s video.

In the comment section of a September 2018 video titled “Logan Paul & KSi Copryright Takedown,” police said Swanson wrote similarly unhinged threats.

In April 2018, a woman, who was disgruntled about YouTube apparently demonetizing her videos, opened fire at the San Bruno, California headquarters, injuring three before killing herself. Police said Swanson told officers he was aware of that shooting.

According to KSL.com, Swanson is out of jail on a $100,000 bond.

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*First Published: May 21, 2019, 2:13 pm CDT