Zoe Quinn And Alex Lifhshitz Launch Crash Override Network, Anti-Harassment Support Network ‘By Survivors, For Survivors’ After Gamergate

Gamergate target Zoe Quinn, the indie game maker who developed Depression Quest, which went viral after Robin Williams' suicide, is launching an anti-harassment support network with fellow video game makers Alex Lifschitz. The Crash Override Network is a support group for people who have been harassed online.

"By survivors, for survivors," the site promises.

Zoe Quinn rose to fame as the video game developer behind Depression Quest. Last year she came under attack by anti-feminists and misogynists from the gaming world. Some of the attacks were very personal, rather than professional. The attacks came to be known as Gamergate.

In an interview with Wired Magazine, Zoe Quinn said was grateful to the support she received and was surprised at how widespread the problem turned out to be. She found support from people who'd had similar experiences.

"Everybody sort of has the same story, especially in terms of being failed by preexisting systems that are supposed to help people," Quinn told Wired Magazine.

Quinn said the "online anti-harassment task force" began "with me thinking very informally, 'Wow, there are a lot of people who want to help and who have been through this who already reach out and help people they see in similar situations,'" she told Wired.

Crash Override lists free services that victims of online harassment, which is also known as doxing or swatting, can call on in self-defense. They include threat monitoring, resources to get in touch with law enforcement and public relations experts and information security.

Quinn's online battle happened last summer. Fruzsina Eördögh at Vice's Motherboard reported at the time that the harassment campaign "includes sharing her personal information, defamatory YouTube videos, and weird phone calls to her parents."

After "Quinngate," Zoe took to her own blog to promise "I will not negotiate with terrorists" and reached out to other victims of harassment

"To anyone else who has had to deal with this kind of indignity on any scale, you have my undying support and my ear if you ever want to talk to someone who might understand. To the people who support my work and can see this crusade for what it is, thank you from the bottom of my heart. To those people, I love you, I always have, and I always will," she wrote in a blog post.

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GamerGate
zoe quinn
depression quest
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