A YouTuber who released a "social experiment" video comparing Christian and Islamic terrorism one day after the Orlando massacre has received heavy criticism.
Joey Salads, a YouTuber with more than 1.2 million subscribers, released a video recording and comparing the public reaction to a man in a thawb running past people shouting "Allahu Akbar" and throwing a silver case down by them. Their reactions were compared to when another man dressed in western clothing does the same thing, but shouts "Praise Jesus".
The video was posted on June 13, three days after 49 people were killed in Orlando in the deadliest shooting in US history.
The aim of the "social experiment" was allegedly to compare people's reactions to Christian and Islamic terrorism and show how "people act different when there's an islamic terrorist versus when there's a Christian terrorist".
It is suspected that the timing of the video, which has 646,500 views was intentional, as the video was tagged with "Orlando Shooting", "Orlando gay club" and "Orlando massacre", and Joey was trying to capitalise on the shooting to get more views and money for his channel.
Joey Salads has subsequently turned off the "Like" and "Dislike" button and written a comment below the video:
"Seems people are disliking before understanding the concept of this video. This video shouldn't offend anyone, it simply opens up a dialogue to a tragedy. This video will raise questions to why certain things happen, watch the WHOLE video to understand".
Among the video's critics is fellow YouTuber Yousef Erakat, known as FouseyTube with more than 11 million subscribers, who described it as "one of the most disgusting videos ever uploaded to YouTube.
"I'm sick and tired of people relating the word terrorist to Islam in any way shape or form. Why is the Christian in your experiment dressed in normal clothing?' he said.
"If you were going to say anything and you wanted to push a stereotype have the other character dress as KKK and now tell me it's okay."
Joey Salads has since released an explainer video, claiming he had hoped to "open up the dialogue" surrounding varying attitudes towards Islamic and Christian terrorism. He has also said he will donate all money made from the video "to the victims and the families of the Orlando Shooting".
