They are not the real issue, but a symptom of a larger problem.
We've also been very, very careful to not give any specifics about what we've been doing, yet. You're jumping the gun when you don't even know what this is about, but given that Zoe and I are involved, I can't say that it's surprising.
Criticism is when you civilly express an opinion of someone or something else, or an action or statement they've made. Criticism is calling someone out and saying you expect more, or have X problem with Y statement, etc.
Abuse is when it moves into personal attacks, or calls for others to engage in personal or physical attacks. Criticism is fine if you disagree, but threatening physical harm or violence to someone isn't criticism - it's a threat. Digging up someone's home address and posting it online isn't criticism. Calling the police to raid someone's house with a SWAT team isn't criticism. Asking if someone would like to be raped because it's a "funny joke" or "satire" isn't criticism - it's threatening and abusive behavior. Any school psychologist can tell you which kids are joking around playfully and which kids are engaging in bullying, and those terms don't suddenly disappear just because we added 20 years to everyone's age.
A movement like GamerGate has many many people in it who willfully engage in what is clearly abuse - and yet the other members who claim not to support this kind of harassment or abuse have done absolutely nothing to stop it. If you're upset that your movement is branded as a bunch of harassers, maybe you should spend more time with the "good" people publicly calling out the ones doing the harassment in your name and asserting some kind of authority.
There's no ambiguity at all - you just want to pretend there is to avoid any responsibility.
Do you think the ant-racist movement is morally equivalent to GamerGate because they have "done absolutely nothing to stop it"?
Who cares about the 99% that is good when GamerGate is continually defined, in every Google search, every Twitter search, every news article in well-known international journalist papers does nothing except point out the continual stream of violent, sexist, and disgusting rhetoric and vitriol come from the hashtag?
Let me give you a piece of advice: if you don't want to be affiliated with the harassment aspect of GamerGate, stop affiliating yourself with GamerGate. Because there is literally no one else outside of GamerGate itself who thinks it's about anything other than harassment.
By all means keep trying to hold up terrible people as examples of "the good ones" though. It's entertaining.
For example suppose I were to criticize Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian. And suppose other people read my criticism, and decided to make nuisance phone calls, or even more severe forms of harassments. Was my original criticism harassment? Because that is how the GamerGate movement has been characterized. Since some people allegedly engaged in things that were clearly defined as harassment or abuse, it was considered that the entire "movement", i.e. everyone making the criticism, was engaging in harassment.
Let's turn this around, and consider whether it is "abuse" when people criticize right wingers.
The situation is especially problematic because the law also contains ambiguous crime such as harassment.