The FBI has posted a heavily redacted report of its threat investigations during the Gamergate controversy in 2014 and 2015. The 173-page document (not counting 61 deleted pages) primarily seems to cover harassment of against critic Anita Sarkeesian and game developer Brianna Wu, including a shooting threat that caused Sarkeesian to cancel a planned talk at Utah State University. Ultimately, the investigations petered out: the FBI wasn’t able to identify the people behind some of the threats, apparently declined to prosecute others, and appears to have struggled with jurisdictional issues.

Names, identifying information, and a variety of other details have been blanked out of the report, but plenty of the documents can be matched to known incidents. A substantial portion, for example, is devoted to a handful of threats regarding the Utah State University talk — a mix of apparently totally serious messages and a “joking” one referencing internet memes. Another section clearly refers to an incident involving a YouTube personality named Jace Connors, who made over-the-top threats against Brianna Wu before unveiling himself as a comedian named Jan Rankowski. (Rankowski — who had convincingly maintained the Connors persona for years beforehand — was affiliated with comedy group Million Dollar Extreme, which more recently made news when Adult Swim dropped its “alt-right” sketch show Million Dollar Extreme Presents: World Peace.)

“He has probably called her at least 40 to 50 times with threats.”

In at least two cases, law enforcement interviewed people who had admitted to sending threatening emails or phone calls, but seems to have let them off with a warning. One was a juvenile in Indiana, and harassed a person who was likely Wu. According to the report:

“He admitted that he was the one making the [redacted]. He told me that he has probably called her at least 40 to 50 times with threats. He sometimes just harasses her and tries to get on her nerves. He explained that he gets online in a chat group and she usually gets upset with them for what they are talking about. They recognize that she is upset and then they try to harass her to make her even more upset. The chat group asked [redacted] to call her and threaten her according to [redacted]. [Redacted] told me that he never made any bomb threats but doesn’t doubt that someone else in the chat group could have done it.”

The report goes on to say that “[redacted] told me that he will stop doing this and apologized for the incident,” which appears to be the end of the case.

“[Redacted] understood that it was a federal crime to send a threatening communication to anyone and will never do it again.”

Another suspect was interviewed around San Jose, California in late 2015. According to the report, he “considered himself to be a ‘tech guy.’” who “often plays video games.” He was “aware about Gamergate from reading about it on Google News” and recalled posting comments on 4chan mocking someone (likely also Wu) who he “considered a professional victim who exaggerated the threats.” He then “admitted to sending [a] threatening email” that he admitted “looked really bad.” Although details about it are redacted, the report goes on to say that he “does not own a shotgun,” which hints at its contents. “[Redacted] understood that it was a federal crime to send a threatening communication to anyone and will never do it again,” the report concludes.

Beware Thor and Tweeter

The FBI appears to have made a serious investigation of some threats, but at least one email thread suggests there were breakdowns in communication with the subjects of them. “We feel like we are sending endless emails into the void with you,” complained one sender. Based on the timing and location details, this was Wu, who published her own account of the experience on the same day. Overall, at least one report indicates that centralizing the investigation in San Francisco limited its jurisdiction. It’s also not clear how familiar some of the FBI agents involved were with common internet services. Twitter is sometimes referred to as “Tweeter,” and one email mentions suspects using “Thor” (probably Tor) for security.

Via Twitter, Wu said that the threats the FBI discussed were only a fraction of the ones she sent them, and that the agency was largely unresponsive to her attempts to provide evidence. “All this report does for me is show how little the FBI cared about the investigation,” she told The Verge. “As I remember, we had three meetings with the FBI, we had two meetings with Homeland Security, we had three meetings with federal prosecutors in Boston. Almost nothing we told them is in this report.” She confirmed that the juvenile mentioned above had been making death threats using his father’s phone; he was apparently grounded as punishment.

This report was actually released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request last year, although at that point, it was difficult to verify whether the recipients had modified its contents. Since “Gamergate” was never really an organized movement, none of the people mentioned in the report are “members” of it, and some incidents predate the controversy, like a bomb threat against Anita Sarkeesian at the 2014 Game Developers Conference. But if anything, this emphasizes that Gamergate per se was one facet of a larger culture war — which it’s now been almost completely absorbed into.

Update 12:45PM ET: Added statement from Brianna Wu.