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Gamergate's most prominent target, Zoe Quinn, announced this week that she would be dropping harassment charges against her ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni, in a longstanding court case.
But in response, Gjoni—the man who inadvertently started Gamergate—said that the legal fight was still on.
Gamergate began with Gjoni's lengthy written attack on his ex-girlfriend. In "the Zoe post," Gjoni alleged that Quinn had cheated on him with a gaming-industry journalist and other gaming-industry insiders in order to advance her career.
Gjoni's post sparked cries among gamers of corruption in gaming journalism, leading to the much-parodied catchphrase, "it's about ethics in journalism." The Zoe post quickly became ground zero for Gamergate, a gaming-industry culture war that rages on to this day. Meanwhile, Quinn shot to the top of the list of gaming's most harassed feminists.
Gjoni is now widely considered a de-facto leading voice in the Gamergate movement, and Quinn's story of harassment at the hands of Gamergaters has become so famous that Hollywood is clamoring to tell it on the silver screen.
In September 2014, Quinn filed abuse charges against Gjoni in Massachusetts, along with an FBI complaint. Gjoni appealed and continued appealing despite a motion from Quinn to vacate the charge in October 2015. After the charge was vacated, Gjoni faced a new charge of criminal harassment.
On Wednesday, Quinn announced on her Tumblr account that she would be dropping the harassment charge. She claimed, in a lengthy description of the toll the court case had taken on her, that her short-lived restraining order against Gjoni had done more harm than good:
Ironically, getting a restraining order against Creep Throat was the least effective thing I could do in terms of getting him out of my life for good, and for protecting myself. I’ll discuss the hot mess of problems around that experience at a later time. Without getting into a long, complicated blow by blow, every time something happened or the case was updated, he’d run back to the mob and make promises and jokes and pleas for more money. The mob would respond by going after me, my family, and anyone else they decided was involved. The mythology surrounding me would expand, conspiracy charts would “prove” I am secretly rich and really deserved it all along, and inspire more threats, stalking, and abuse. The cycle repeated itself endlessly. People kept getting hurt for being close to me, for a poorly worded restraining order that did nothing.
Quinn also claimed that the justice system is set up to "punish, not protect," and that "[t]rying to get the law to protect me has only continually put me in harm’s way." Quinn also noted that she feared an adverse ruling given a recent similar court case related to Gamergate. In that case, the court dismissed criminal harassment charges filed by feminists against a Gamergate proponent, in part because the alleged harassment happened on Twitter.
On Reddit, gamers celebrated the development, treating it as a victory for Gjoni and a sign that Quinn would have lost the case had it gone further.
But the court case apparently isn't over yet. The case's appellate court filing indicates that, as of Feb. 5, Gjoni's appeal remained active. The next hearing is an oral argument scheduled for March 18.
Speaking to the Daily Dot by email, Gjoni confirmed that his appeal was still ongoing. The appeal is a response to a gag order the court briefly placed on him.
Gjoni speculated to the Daily Dot that Quinn had "vacated [the gag order] in hopes of avoiding scrutiny from a higher court" after lawyers argued that it was unconstitutional. Gjoni has said previously that his goal in pursuing the appeal is to "try to make case law protecting other people (in Massachusetts anyway) from being unconstitutionally subject to similar orders."
"The order she opted for is notorious for its potential to be misused as a means of subverting the First Amendment," Gjoni told the Daily Dot.
"Legal scholars have been concerned about this for years (decades?) and have been making slow and steady progress to establish legal boundaries on what these orders can and cannot be used for," Gjoni continued. "As it stands, in most states, they are kind of a golden ticket you can get in about 5 minutes with pretty much no evidence whatsoever."
In her Tumblr post, Quinn observed that Gjoni's continued ability to speak about her, and the existence of the court case, effectively escalated harassment toward her from his supporters. She also claimed that Gjoni has profited financially from the case's continuation—a claim that Gjoni contested in his response, also posted on Tumblr.
Quinn was most likely referring to gamers crowdfunding Gjoni's legal fees. To date, Gjoni has raised nearly $50,000 to cover his defense, including $17,000 for a "stretch goal" that allowed him to pursue his appeal.
In his email to the Daily Dot, Gjoni protested any implications that he had profited from the court case.
"Getting paid implies the money is going to me," he said. "All of the money goes to lawyers (who are passionate enough about the issues at stake to be taking the case on at discount)."
Gjoni argued that taking a plea deal instead of pursuing the appeal for the greater good "would have been way cheaper."
"You could argue that the lawyers are for me," he said, "but they aren't really."
Gjoni told the Daily Dot that he couldn't predict how the case would move forward, but he said it "seems very unlikely that they could legally justify a ruling in her favor."
Quinn told the Daily Dot in an email that she was reticent to "engage or argue" or participate in a back-and-forth with Gjoni through the media. In her Tumblr post, she expressed hope that dropping the case rather than pursuing it further would allow her to heal—and to devote more energy to projects like Crash Override, an organization she co-founded last year to help guide victims of online harassment and doxing through the rocky process of dealing with their predicament.
Screengrab via XOXO Festival/YouTube