Tilted Tuesday Tribulations

As always, opinions are mine, not those of Lichess.org.

For years I argued with Lichess staff, and ultimately we agreed, that the label of "This account violated the Lichess Terms of Service" is sufficient; there is no need to explicitly label cheaters. However, recently Chess.com updated their user agreement:

Consistent with our User Agreement, if we determine or suspect that you have violated our Fair Play Policy in any way, then we may close your account and label it publicly closed for Fair Play violation(s).

WFM Malak Ismayil has recently been accused of fair play violation(s) by Chess.com, and now publicly appeals:

A few weeks ago, yes, I did play in qualifier #4 of the WSCC and I scored 8/11 in the Swiss section and narrowly made it into the knockout. Then I came back from a 0-3 deficit against WGM Priyanka Nutakki to win 3.5-3.5 with a draw with black in the final armageddon game (mind you, with 0.1 seconds left on my clock, isn’t that insane?). I then almost beat Anastasia Bodnaruk in the final match, but when I had my 2.5-1.5 lead, my internet went out and we were tied. Azerbaijan isn’t exactly the greatest place to play anything on the internet. I’ve lost countless TT games just from a lack of decent connection, but at this point, I’m used to it. At any rate, I lost to Bodnaruk 4.5-3.5.

That was not when my account got shadow banned. I was attempting to play TT a few days later (the Tuesday after the Friday qualifier) and after completing rd 1, I was messaged that the fair play team was checking my account (and subsequently I was kicked). They then apologized and let me play the rest of early TT. During the late edition of TT, I attempted to play rd 1, but was kicked prior to the round starting. At this point, I believed I had missed a message for some proctored Zoom call, but I had checked my chess.com messages and my email and came up with nothing...

This whole time, I thought the email address I was checking (for basically all other chess-related news/correspondence/etc.) was the one my chess.com was linked to, but it wasn’t...

I was offered a chance to “admit to violating fair play policy,” but naturally any innocent person would rather have their account publicly banned instead of admitting to something they know they didn’t do. My other option was to appeal, to somehow prove that I wasn’t violating the fair play policy. This presented some challenges: how was I supposed to prove I wasn’t violating any aspect of the fair play policy beyond the shadow of a doubt? And within only 1 week of being notified? Honestly, I didn’t want to do either option. If I admitted to violating fair play policy, I’d essentially be ruining my name. However, if I presented some sort of evidence with an appeal and it got denied, I’d be banned for life on chess.com...

While the Kramnik situation is a much more hyperbolized, dramatized, extreme version of someone accusing (sorry, insinuating) others of cheating, I ask the people of the world this: do you think it’s right to accuse someone of cheating with little-to-no evidence or just a “I think this person did this”? I’m talking about accusing real people with real names publicly of cheating. Shouldn’t there be repercussions for this behavior?...

At any rate, hopefully this all pans out with chess.com (though I doubt it). I’m confident the reason I got banned was just for a ridiculously embarrassing miscommunication mistake, and I hope to have my name cleared upon review. It deeply upsets me that this has happened to me, and I feel disgusted and embarrassed beyond belief at everything that has unfolded. At the least, I wish to clear my name, even if I never get to play on chess.com for the rest of my life. I believe chess.com’s decision to publicly release the names of cheaters is double-edged (no pun intended): on one hand, it’s good to know who the cheaters are, but at the same time, when you ban innocent people, it can really ruin the reputation that person has. At any rate, this has been pretty much the most stressful, upsetting thing I have gone through as a chess player (or really ever) and I hope to everything that this message reaches the people of the internet well.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy chess (play the Austrian line against the Queen’s Gambit!) ~ Malak Ismayil

Of course I find this public appeal credible, and I too understand that publicly labeling a player may have consequences; again, years ago I foresaw potential risks with Lichess applying "engine" or "abuser" labels, exactly as Ismayil suggests:

I was offered a chance to “admit to violating fair play policy,"... This [situation] presented some challenges: how was I supposed to prove I wasn’t violating any aspect of the fair play policy beyond the shadow of a doubt?

... and I still don't see any benefit to a platform accusing its players of "Fair Play Policy" violation as opposed to some sort of generic label. I'm not even contending such a label could be legally erroneous (prize events on Chess.com have many rules which players consent to), just morally dubious since people with brains tend to believe the phrase "fair play" has a clear meaning.

As for, "Should there be repercussions for public accusations?" my stance is twofold:

• Morally, there is a need for civil discourse and a need to bring people to account for things irresponsibly said, or we can't have public discourse. If you allow extremists to speak freely and unchecked as X occasionally (or worse) does, that's not discourse and not how you have a conversation.
• Legally, USA defamation laws seem reasonable, although European and Japanese defamation laws also sound interesting.

Finally, I'll continue to suggest that the antidote to Chess.com possible abuse of discretion would be either:

• Chess players form a union to protect players' interests.
• Developers improve publicly available tools to the point where chess speaks for itself and the public finds accusations (let alone confessions) uninteresting... chess isn't Danganronpa; given enough data, it shouldn't be difficult to discover which players benefit from cheating without having to dramatically argue in vague circles using sensational buzzwords.