Kramnik’s Blog was closed

The blog of chess world champion Vladimir Kramnik was closed on chess.com…

What do you think guys?
Is chess.com perfect in anticheating or there is no cheating problem at all, but only paranoia? Is it ok to ban somebody just for disagreement with official platform position? Or may be chess world champion thoughts are not that important for the community?

Can we see some official explanation why the blog was closed?

P.S. chess.com statement 

https://twitter.com/chesscom/status/1738922510442180868

So it looks like Kramnik was muted for “GM Kramnik has continued to take his
accusations public using his profile and blog on Chess.com. This not only violates Chess.com's terms of service, but also FIDE's code of conduct.”

I guess that it was solely out of respect for Kramnik golf.se let him carry on for so long. But since he never made much sense and didn´t post any of the proof he claimed to have but acted as a troll and a bully towards any and all who questioned him I guess the situation became untenable. That cheating exists in online chess and that this is a problem to be dealt with does not excuse acting like Kramnik did.

It was sad witnessing this debacle.

Kramnik lost his mind and couldn't understand online chess or handle that he wasn't fast enough to play it at the level of the likes of Hikaru. It is a kindness to shut his rantings down for what little reputation he has left. Hopefully he gets the help he needs.

I don’t think it is nice to say that someone lost his mind. As for Kramnik - he said - that chess.com can check his games also. For me it is ok if any player can be checked - if it helps to fight cheaters.

Kramnik wasn't shut down for inviting chess.com to check his games. So I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, aside from spreading a verbal smoke-screen.

I'm mildly interested in whether Chess.com or Kramnik closed the blog. But only mildly.

AIUI Kramnik would block a lot of people and erase anything he didn't agree with, which, if true, is not a very mature-or intellectually honest way to make your point.

Reddit had more info and Chess.com has posted a tweet

Chess.com cut him of for repeated violations of terms of service.

3 reasonable length and informative paragraphs.

Apologies for lack of link- but be darned in I know how to do that-here.

Thx for the info, I’ll try to check Reddit - found it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/18po623/chesscom_disables_kramniks_blog/

and chess.com explanation https://twitter.com/chesscom/status/1738922510442180868

So it looks like Kramnik was banned for “GM Kramnik has continued to take his
accusations public using his profile and blog on Chess.com. This not only violates Chess.com's terms of service, but also FIDE's code of conduct.”

I think Chess.com made the right decision here. There's a difference between being right and being right for the right reasons. Even if Kramnik is right that there's more cheating on the site than chess.com admits or realizes (and I'm honestly not in a position to comment one way or the other) it's definitely not for the reasons Kramnik raises.

Even if you think that there's more cheating on chess.com than the site realizes, you should still care about catching the RIGHT cheaters.

Kramnik is applying entirely unsound methodology to identify cheaters. He is then using his vast (and well-deserved) prestige to slander innocent players. Or at the least, even if they are guilty, players that aren't guilty for the reasons Kramnik thinks.

If you care about catching the right cheaters, you should be frustrated at Kramnik for tying the "anti-cheating" movement up with his, frankly, conspiratorial attitude.

It would be reckless of chess.com to allow their site to be used as a vehicle for baseless slander. They have made the right decision is muting his account.

I am not sure that muting is the best solution here.

If I were a 3000+ fair player on chess.com I would only welcome any possible checks by mathematicians or by playing in offline tournaments or by any other means.

If I play fair - any possible check is like a free advertisement for me to get more fans subscribers and so on.

I sort of agreed with Kramnik about his views, but he has definitely approached this the wrong way. Accusing 12 year old chess prodigies publically is not the way to go. It could derail their future career. While we all know cheating is a significant problem on chess.com and the otb chess, chess.com has made the correct decision here.

considering that discussion of cheating isn't really permitted publicly, and rather allowed only in private clubs (specifically, the cheating forum club), I'm surprised he was allowed to carry on as much as he did.

Yep, I am agree that the way selected by Kramnik to approach the cheating problem is not the best one. Gotham just recapped the issue in his video. He said smth like “We have a problem. Kramnik selects the wrong way. What is the right way? I do not know”. 
At least Kramnik tries to do smth. If you are doing smth wrong there is a chance you will do it right one day. But if you are doing nothing - nothing will change.

As for 12 year prodigy - I am sure everything will be fine here because he showed stunning performance in offline tournaments also.

They were right to ban Kramnik. It proves no-one can break the rules and get away with it which is, rather amusingly, allegedly what he wanted.

I think that the thruth is on both sides. Kramnik's suspicions were probably not true, but you never know. If chess.com had proof that somebody is cheating, they would immediately report him.But since it's so easy to cheat nowadays it's hard to tell if somebody is cheating. That means we perhaps need these suspicions. I'm not telling that Kramnik was right. I'm trying to tell that maybe he just tried to find some cheaters but the way he did it is obviously not good. Kramnik probably just wanted to be more active in the community.

Russian is not a race. It is a nationality. This is not a racism issue. It is an issue of someone publishing accusations against people (including children) with insufficient evidence and deleting any comments which do not agree or disprove his views.

Ego, much?

Hans is American (and he admitted cheating) so that kind of goes against your argument of Russian's being singled out for "punishment". As for flags and the rest. If you agree with Russia invading other countries and killing thousands of innocent people then that's on you. Maybe you should chill out, let the chess speak for itself and have a happy Christmas 🙂

Yet another Russian whining about so-called discrimination against Russians. Nobody whines like a Russian - the bully claims to be a victim, the aggressor claims he wants peace.

Clean up your act, stop killing people and start to behave like a normal law-abiding country instead of an outlaw-gangster state. Then maybe you'll be let back into the "club of the civilised". Until then, "идите лесом!"

free VK !