Community Guidelines

People of all ages and backgrounds come to Lichess to play, learn, and connect with others through a shared love of chess. We want Lichess to be a fun and supportive environment for everyone. To ensure this, we’ve created these guidelines, which include and expand on existing chat, forum, and blog guidance.

TL;DR

All users should treat each other with kindness, courtesy and respect.

Reporting violations

If you see something that violates these guidelines or makes you feel unsafe, please don’t hesitate to report it to us by using lichess.org/report.

Content that isn't allowed on Lichess

Certain types of content or behaviour are not allowed on Lichess.

Threats, Bullying and Harassment
We do not allow threatening or bullying behaviour. This includes insulting other users, threatening other users with harm (real-world or online), encouraging violence, bullying, harassment, stalking, trolling, intimidation, extortion, blackmail, impersonation, and doxxing. If you are experiencing any of this, report it to moderators using https://lichess.org/report.

Discrimination, Slurs, and Hate Speech
We do not allow behaviour or content that discriminates, mocks, or promotes hatred against individuals or groups; or encourages others to do so, either directly or indirectly, on the basis of their age, race (or perceived race), ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity (or expression), religion or religious affiliation/beliefs, physical or mental disability status, caste, tribe, or immigration status.

Suicide, Self Injury, and Harmful Behavior
We do not allow content or behaviour that depicts, glorifies or encourages suicide or self-injury. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or self-harm, there is help available. You can find your closest help centre at https://befrienders.org or crisis helpline at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines.

Child Safety
We will take strong action against all forms of predatory behaviour such as grooming (attempting to befriend a minor in order to exploit them), engaging in sexual conversation with a minor, asking children for sexual pictures or videos, and any activity relating to child sexual abuse material (CSAM). [1]

Sexual Content
We do not allow content that depicts sexual activity. This includes engaging in sexually explicit conversations; asking other Lichess users for sexual pictures or videos; content or usernames that depict, suggest or describe sexual acts; nudity; sexually suggestive images; and engaging in unwanted flirtatious behaviour.

Illegal and Regulated Goods and Activities
We do not allow users to discuss or engage in illegal activities on Lichess, or encourage others to do so. Lichess must follow the laws of France and the European Union. These discussions should be reported to moderators using https://lichess.org/report.

Intellectual Property Violations
We expect users to respect the intellectual property rights of others. We will remove infringing content upon receiving a valid copyright or trademark takedown request from a rights holder. Copyright and registered trademark takedown requests can be filed here. We may proactively delete content if we suspect that the content may be infringing on someone’s intellectual property rights.

Spam
We do not allow spam: sending irrelevant, unsolicited or repetitive messages.

Infrastructure Abuse
We do not allow abuse of our infrastructure. This includes violating our rules on multiple accounts, attempts to circumvent our protections, abusing any of our third party service providers, and other similar practices, as set out in our Terms of Service.

In addition, where communications may also amount to unlawful or illegal behaviour, we will cooperate with relevant law enforcement authorities when deemed necessary – in line with our Terms of Service.

What happens if I violate these guidelines?

If you violate these guidelines, our moderators may take action against your account, such as removing your communication privileges or even closing your account. In particular:

• Messages in public chats may be timed out for public shaming, spamming, disrespecting other users, or inappropriate behaviour. See our chat etiquette page for advice and examples.
• Users may be warned for a first violation of these guidelines, with subsequent violations (or serious first violations) leading to the removal of communication privileges.
• Forum posts that violate these guidelines or our forum etiquette advice will be removed, and the responsible user will be notified with a reason.
• Moderators may also restrict the visibility of user blogs that violate these guidelines or our blog etiquette advice.
• Particularly serious violations may result in the closure of your account.

Changelog

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[1] In these guidelines, ‘minor’ means a person aged under 18 years old.