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Crash Override Network was a support group for victims of large scale online abuse, including
revenge porn Revenge porn is the distribution of sexually explicit images or videos of individuals without their consent, with the punitive intention to create public humiliation or character assassination out of revenge against the victim. The material ma ...
and
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.


History

Crash Override was founded by game developers Zoë Quinn and Alex Lifschitz, and was staffed exclusively by victims of online abuse whose identities were kept anonymous outside the group. Quinn and Lifschitz were subjected to online abuse during the Gamergate harassment campaign, with both receiving death threats and being doxxed. Crash Override formed a partnership with Feminist Frequency in March 2016, which served as its financial sponsor. From December 2016, Crash Override's hotline was closed. Some time in 2018, Crash Override closed fully, and "passed the torch to other organisations".


Mission

The founders of Crash Override consider it a conversation starter, a repository for addressing problems that others in and out of the gaming community "have long hoped would simply go away." The organisation's services are divided into three categories: ongoing assistance for victims, crisis centre support, and community outreach. They provide post-crisis counseling services, help seeking shelter, and access to experts in information security, white hat hacking, law enforcement, public relations and threat monitoring. The network tailors a unique plan of action for each victim and works with law enforcement, the media, and social media. They promise to help victims regardless of previous affiliations and ideology, including Gamergate supporters. The group has been credited with defusing a
swatting Swatting is a form of criminal harassment that involves deceiving an emergency service (via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into sending a police or emergency response team to another person's location. This is achieved ...
attack by advising the target to preemptively contact the police. Quinn said the launch of Crash Override Network led to a renewed and heightened campaign of abuse, and the website underwent daily hack attempts. In May 2015, the organisation became an official
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trusted safety resource.


References


External links

* {{Portal bar, Internet, Video games 2015 establishments 2015 in video gaming 2018 disestablishments Cyberbullying Gamergate (harassment campaign) Human rights organizations based in the United States Internet activism Sexual harassment Women and video games