Anti Semitism on Chess.Com

Played some games win or lose and occasionaly have said "good game afterwards. And some opponents have said "Good Game" as a reply. I recall one who flew the Palestine flag said "Good Game".  

Meanwhile opponents recently I have seen an uptick in anti semitism chat messages from countries like Qatar, Saudi & US.

Chess.Com has policy in place to close accounts on profane language and vulgar behavior.  Why doesn't it close accounts on unproved chats messages stating vulgar messages and  "From The River To The Sea" ??

One of these members has a substantial friend list who flys the Isreal flag.

Correction above should read "unprovoked"

I sometimes receive messages, where opponents wish me to die from russian missiles, because I am Ukrainian. Idiots are present everywhere, even in chess. Just report them and do not take them seriously. I, know, it is easier to say, than to do, but at least I try.

That does leave a question about chess.com policy. Does chess.com recognize “From the river to the sea” as antisemitic and/or a call to violence?

@Smile, you should blur out the usernames in that image. Public shaming is against chess.com’s community policy.

Indeed.

By the way, I went ahead and made blurred-out versions of the images for you, just in case you didn't know how to do it yourself.

If the sides of the image are cut off, just right-click on it and choose "Open Image in New Tab" to see the whole thing.

Thank you "Green Sleeves" for your help.

I am not "public shaming" rather public sharing what was written to me in a Live Game.

People make mistakes but this type of hate is the modern version of the 1939 Holocaust. The scale is smaller than in 1939 but that credit belongs to the jewish people.

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Reported behavior after game occurred, and no response! Then Reported behavior as an urgent event because the site seems to have many glitches or experiencing technical issues.

Anyways no response given. At this time a chess staff member reached out to me for an unrelated follow up. The bottom of message read. "Should you have any further inquiries or require additional assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'm here and more than willing to assist you."

So I addressed my concerns and uploaded the screen shots of the behavior. No response give.

And I figure I would share with the chess.com community my experience on this site.

Chess.com can not moderate everything, that a big task. I am sure they are inundated with reports but lets no kid our selves that they don't have the resources, capabilities and staff to do the right thing. If they don't have enough staff either recruit more moderators or add additional staff on the payroll. One of these members is a "diamond" that's not free!

So why the soft stance? Ignorance of the conduct at this point is not believable. Is closing member accounts a conflict of interest?

You would think that members who have paid into the chess.com system would have more skin in the game. It almost seems more attractive to not pay into the chess.com system. A chess.com member with the basic/ free account has no skin in the game.

"Diamond" accounts in the past have been closed so... Yet nothing has been done.

I understand your displeasure at unprovoked derision or political commentary, but, from the screenshot, it seems apparent that other user was taking issue with child killers rather than Jews as such, and so clearly does not constitute antisemitism.

#11, it may seem like that on the surface, but if we look again at the post, the player called @Smile a "Child killer. People like you are in hell. Killers. Animals." The only reason he called @Smile a child killer was based on the Israeli flag, not based on anything said. And then he calls "people like you" killers and animals. This means that at best, he thinks all Israelis are child killers and animals. At worst, he thinks all Jews are child killers and animals. But most likely, he thinks that all Israeli Jews are child killers and animals (I doubt he'd say that about an Israeli Arab), which I still believe is antisemitic.

Either way, calling someone a child killer based solely on an Israeli flag is hateful toward a national or ethnic background, and it seems like that would be against chess.com's TOS.

Completely agree.

I'm just trying to do everything I can to keep this thread from getting locked or removed by moderators XD

You could have asked questions before defending and or interpreting the "diamond member" as you see fit.

What do you think "From the river to the see means" ?! The other opponent wrote the same thing and no response was given.

You should have replied to his first comment with

*Israel, not Isreal

XD

this thread will get locked

It is an ambiguous statement that can mean everything - including a one state solution with the same rights for everyone, and the end of apartheid. Saying it is a priori antisemitic is like saying "Make America Great Again" is a call for slavery.

I do agree, however, that insulting people just based on their flag is unacceptable.

From the river to the sea, is not an inclusive statement toward Israel and the diverse population. Interesting analogy. and choice of words. Notice you didn't use Build back better or Hope & Change.

That's because YOU interpret it this way.

Also interesting that you consider my analogy to be "interesting". I brought it up because people criticized the MAGA slogan, the same way you criticize "From the river to the sea". However, the triadic idea of "Make America Great Again" is way older than Trump. It goes back to the American puritans (Cf. Sacvan Bercovitch's "The American Jeremiad"), German Romanticism (Cf. Novalis), or even the "Odyssey". So just because you read the slogan through the lense of your experience and consider it to be negative, doesn't mean the slogan itself has only this one dimension.

This is from an Arab poll: https://www.awrad.org/files/server/polls/polls2023/Public%20Opinion%20Poll%20-%20Gaza%20War%202023%20-%20Tables%20of%20Results.pdf

“From the river to the sea” is specifically in contrast to allowed Jews and Arabs to live together in one country (One-State Solution for Two Peoples).

Perhaps when people in Western countries say “From the river to the sea” they don’t fully understand the implications, but when Muslim Arabs say it they are calling the purging of Jews from the land. Hence why we wonder whether or not chess.com considers it to be harassment or discrimination.

That slogan, which I probably shouldn't repeat, has been widely criticized as a call for the destruction of Israel. Using the term in public can have negative consequences. In the United States a member of congress was censured for using it. House leadership condemned using the phrase. In other jurisdictions around the world using that phrase has been outlawed. In some countries punishable by up to 3 years in prison.

Chess.com apparently take a much more lenient approach. Which is interesting. Because very, very often other seemingly less harmless speech is immediately erased and the user muted.