About The Network

This is who we are and what we can do.
What do we mean when we say online abuse?

Online Abuse is a broad topic that can mean many things to many people, so it's important to know what exactly we're well-equipped to handle. We take a multi-pronged approach that involves working with individuals, tech partners, law enforcement agencies, and legislatures. With each one of these groups, our network currently specializes in preventing and combatting the following issues:

  • Nonconsensual Intimate Images (sometimes known as Revenge Porn)
  • Hacking and Online Security
  • Stalking and Surveillance
  • Doxing (circulation of private information)
  • SWATing (Endangering people by using false police reports)
  • Impersonation
  • Threats & Harassment
  • Mob-Based Harassment
  • Online Hate Groups

Crash Override Network is a purely defensive, opt-in organization. We use proven and humane methods to combat online abuse, putting our clients' needs, privacy, and consent above all else.

How can we help?

IndividualsBeing targeted by online abuse can be frightening, no matter how familiar you are with it. Crash Override works with clients before, during, and after episodes of online abuse with a combination of public resources, private case work, and institutional outreach.

PUBLIC RESOURCES:

While each case of online abuse is different, everyone can benefit from some basic know-how. As we learn more about the current trends in online abuse through our private study and casework, we publish generalized tools and resources to help both the public and our clients in need. These include:

  • Guides for common questions, unique concerns, and difficult situations surrounding online abuse. This can include guides on everything from scrubbing personal data, to security software, to talking to your family about the internet; as we discover relevant issues and solutions, we create new materials to help both our clients and the public.

  • Interactive tools designed to help people strengthen their account security, finding and remove sensitive information, and strengthening privacy settings. We work with clients with a variety of tech literacy levels, and can help people of all backgrounds and experience levels make their online life more secure.

  • Educational materials for individuals, employers, and government bodies on the new realities of online abuse and how to both understand and contend with it.

  • Referrals to our partner organizations for further assistance.

You can find all of these and more in our resource center.

PRIVATE ASSISTANCE:

Please Be Advised: As of December 2016, Our Hotline Is Temporarily Suspended.

Due to overwhelming need for assistance with online abuse outpacing our current resources, the hotline is temporarily suspended. This is to allow us to the time and means to focus our efforts on restructuring the organization to better meet the needs of the online community seeking our help. Our public resources and advocacy efforts will remain active while we improve the way that the helpline internally operates to provide free, reliable, and effective aid to more people than ever before. We apologize for our inability to take on additional casework in the interim, and are working fiercely to keep the downtime as short as possible.

No matter your level of familiarity with it, being targeted by online abuse can be frightening, and no two incidents are the same. Crash Override works with individuals through our e-mail crisis helpline, help [at] crashoverridenetwork.com, providing personalized assistance regarding their unique concerns surrounding online abuse.

We focus on the ways different cases of online abuse are shaped by our clients’ intersectional identities, such as race, gender, sexuality, mental health, etc, as well as the often personal nature of online abuse, such as in cases of stalking and domestic violence. For this and many other reasons, our services will always be 100% free to clients. This includes:

  • Advice to help clients navigate the complicated systems surrounding online abuse, whether it be a preventative concern or crisis situation. It’s hard to know what to expect when you’re targeted. Using our knowledge as experts and survivors of online abuse, we help people secure themselves, gain a more confident understanding of their situation, and provide resources and information to help them get their lives back on track.

  • Monitoring and Continued Support of crisis cases. Monitoring one’s own abuse is a taxing psychological burden not meant to fall on those most affected. Our agents can assist in monitoring, documenting, and reporting of abusive accounts through our partnerships at social media platforms, as well as flagging possible safety risks or plans of escalation. Everything we do is at the consent of the client, at every step of the way.

  • Referrals to specialists and partner organizations. We’re small, and volunteer-run. Some cases may require a particular expertise we don’t have on-staff, whether that be in a specialized area of online abuse or a professional relationship we do not provide. When possible, we refer clients to organizations that may best be able to help, whether those be partner organizations or lesser-known public resources.

  • Understanding. It's unfortunately common for people experiencing online abuse to feel like no one understands what they're going through,or to blame themselves for their abusers' behavior. Our agents have firsthand experience with the realities and nuances of online abuse. We’ve been there, and we provide a space where people can discuss their concerns, experiences, and difficulties without the fear of doubt or dismissal.

Tech Companies We try to fix issues as close to the source as possible. For us, that begins with the companies and platforms where these issues take shape. We are constantly establishing new relationships with tech and social media platforms in service to our clients. To such partners, we provide:

  • • Case Escalation: The bigger a platform is, the more overburdened it's safety & abuse departments tend to be. As a first-line responder for systemic cases of online abuse, we work with tech partners to establish channels of communication to quickly and effectively alert them to abuse of their platform impacting our clients, helping them reduce their response times and assist their users more quickly.

  • • Advocacy: Through our work with our clients, we gain firsthand understanding of the ways a platform’s Terms of Service or other infreastructure actually manifests in user experiences. This allows us to help our tech partners improve their guidelines, enforcement procedures, get real feedback, and qualitatively improve their communities. In return, when we work with a tech platform, we gain a real understanding of how they operate and can better advise our clients on what to report and how. This also works both ways - when we work with a tech platform we gain a real understanding of how they operate, and we can better advise our clients on what to report and how.

  • • Expertise: In the process of helping thousands of people, we’ve learned a thing or two about how users exploit platforms and propagate abuse. Beyond improving Terms of Service, we advise on concepts, features, and processes that can help a platform regulate itself or provide more safety to their users. From the engineering level to basic humane considerations, we know what works and what doesn't. We’re happy to share these lessons with tech and social media partners looking to improve their services for the people who want to use them.


Government Officials Online abuse is still abuse, but gaps in culturual understanding allow behavior that would otherwise be considered dangerous or illegal to slip through the cracks. Where possible, we work with law enforcement and legal/government agencies to bridge those gaps so they can better defend and advocate for the communities they serve while keeping the good things about the internet from being legislated into oblivion.

We’ve worked with victim’s advocates, prosecutors, and law enforcement to bring them up to speed on the realities of how these systems are exploited to criminal effect, especially in cases of stalking and domestic violence. We’ve also worked with lawmakers to help them better understand nuances of online life, helping to guide them to policy that effectively protects people online without trampling on important privacy benefits. We, in turn, take these understandings back to the people who contact us for help.

Who We Are.

Crash Override was founded in 2015 by Zoë Quinn and Alex Lifschitz after their own highly publicized experiences as targets of severe online abuse. We are a NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) that grows and evolves in response to the needs of our clients. For privacy reasons, all agents of our network are kept anonymous outside of the organization, due to the high-risk nature of combatting abuse and online hate groups. We have a number of agents on-call to help work the crisis hotline elements of our organization, as well as an extended network of agents in fields ranging from security experts to mental health professionals that we call on for advice and assistance.

a picture of zoe quinn Zoë Quinn, CEO

Zoë Quinn is an award-winning independent game developer, artist, and activist. After she became the first target of GamerGate, she began fighting to protect others from what had happened to her.

a picture of Alex Lifschitz Alex Lifschitz, COO

Alex Lifschitz is the co-founder and COO of Crash Override Network, a foremost source in assisting and advocating for targets of online abuse and helping social networks build better, safer platforms.

Our Agents

Crash Override Agents are experts in their field and survivors of online abuse. We protect their identities from the public because of the high-risk nature of fighting back against online abuse.