Harassment and Toxic Behavior on Chess.com
Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2019 3:53 pm
A Norwegian journalist, Julie Egeland has written an article for Morgenbladet alleging she has been sexually harassed at Chess.com and demonstrating why female chess players may be put off from playing online.
As the article is in Norwegian, below is a Google translation so apologies for the translation and grammar errors but hopefully its readable, followed by a link to the response from the Chess.com CEO where the CEO apologises to the journalist and clearly asserts that he wants to stamp out this disgusting behaviour.
"When I decided in the New Year to join the world's largest chess community - chess.com - I expected to be humiliated. I have not played chess since I challenged the school's caretaker to a lightning game in a small room and I have no greater knowledge than I know where the various pieces can go.
What I did not expect, however, was that nerds from around the world should ask if I get wet by losing my queen or being called a whore when I sacrifice a rook to win a knight. It is, of course, off the board I should be humiliated, not on it.
At Chess.com one can play games against not only friends but random people from all corners of the world. Like many others, I play via the chess.com app on the phone. When you want to start a game, the chess app selects an appropriate opponent based on the level you are on. Playing against random players is a good strategy to become a better player and get a better rating. (Not to mention that it's fun when you have about two other friends playing chess.) While the party is in progress, you have the opportunity to chat with your opponent, for example, to arrange possible draw, or send one of chess.com's automated messages, like "good game".
It is here, behind the black and white fields - in the dark gray zone of the internet - the real game takes place for some. Since I created the user Jullassjakk in January, with an associated profile picture/portrait photo of myself wearing sunglasses, I have received messages from about ten different users who are directly sex-depriving, as well as several more innocent but still flirtatious and ongoing messages.
I must honestly admit that when writing "show ur pussy", I don't get hurt in my stomach or feel the tears pushing. I find it primarily unruly comic. At the same time, it is not to be overlooked that being asked to show pussy while sitting at the kitchen table and playing before dinner seems distracting. It takes your mind away from the game itself - in just a few seconds. When you play a five-minute speed match, those seconds are valuable.
If you search for "Sexual harassment, online chess" in Google, you get a number of threads from the forum to chess.com, where several female users write that they are still amazed at how many approaches they get of sexual character when playing chess online . More people ask for advice on what to do to avoid getting such messages. An alternative is to shut down the chat, another to report the user and try to get the person blocked.
Fortunately, several male users in the forum have the final answer to the problem: They suggest that as long as one only switches to a neutral profile image and does not choose to have an avatar where one clearly sees that one is a woman, then the harassment disappears. The user embutido writes: "If you leave everything as it is, maybe you are subconsciously looking for attention from men?"
In other words, we have made the mistake; to be a girl on the internet. If we are to avoid ending up when we play chess, then we must pretend that we are a man. The rhetoric belongs in the 1950s.
At the same time, these users have a straightforward turn. When I talked to my two male friends and chess.com players about the approaches, they just amazed me. They didn't understand what I was talking about, they had never received messages other than "gg" ( good game )!
Chess.com is not a unique case - unfortunately. Rather, it is an example that shows how the stallion is in 2019. According to a report by the Institute for Social Research of 2016 , women experience more gender-based ecstasy than men do, and women are also more prone to sexual harassment and stalking - unwanted and repetitive attention. Being a woman online is completely different than being a man.
It is also tempting to draw parallels from the dark corner of chess.com - not to forget the answers to the forum - to the big problem of the chess in 2019: That sport is still dominated by men. It applies to who is playing and claiming in chess, but also who is the leader in the conversation about it - and sets the premises.
The messages I have received tell something ominously about the work of recruiting more girls which "everyone" agrees is a stated goal. As The Guardian commentator Alisha Matthewson-Grand wrote after the Chess World Cup in 2018, the root of the recruitment problem is that we still lack prominent female chess players in the world top - we lack a female Magnus Carlsen. Junior talents are developing early. So how do we build them? We must at least avoid pushing them down.
For one thing, what the chat room on chess.com is doing with me, a falling star on the chess sky of 28 years, but what about the 15-year-old girl, who may be the start of a promising chess career, who is training play online after school? How can such harassing, at best, slothful messages affect her and her self-image? What does it do with the will and desire to go further on chess?
If the chess environment continues to close its eyes to what is happening in the place where "most people" actually talk and talk about chess - on the internet - they may risk losing more female talents and future stars along the way. In that case, it will be a loss."
Chess.Com CEO response
As the article is in Norwegian, below is a Google translation so apologies for the translation and grammar errors but hopefully its readable, followed by a link to the response from the Chess.com CEO where the CEO apologises to the journalist and clearly asserts that he wants to stamp out this disgusting behaviour.
"When I decided in the New Year to join the world's largest chess community - chess.com - I expected to be humiliated. I have not played chess since I challenged the school's caretaker to a lightning game in a small room and I have no greater knowledge than I know where the various pieces can go.
What I did not expect, however, was that nerds from around the world should ask if I get wet by losing my queen or being called a whore when I sacrifice a rook to win a knight. It is, of course, off the board I should be humiliated, not on it.
At Chess.com one can play games against not only friends but random people from all corners of the world. Like many others, I play via the chess.com app on the phone. When you want to start a game, the chess app selects an appropriate opponent based on the level you are on. Playing against random players is a good strategy to become a better player and get a better rating. (Not to mention that it's fun when you have about two other friends playing chess.) While the party is in progress, you have the opportunity to chat with your opponent, for example, to arrange possible draw, or send one of chess.com's automated messages, like "good game".
It is here, behind the black and white fields - in the dark gray zone of the internet - the real game takes place for some. Since I created the user Jullassjakk in January, with an associated profile picture/portrait photo of myself wearing sunglasses, I have received messages from about ten different users who are directly sex-depriving, as well as several more innocent but still flirtatious and ongoing messages.
I must honestly admit that when writing "show ur pussy", I don't get hurt in my stomach or feel the tears pushing. I find it primarily unruly comic. At the same time, it is not to be overlooked that being asked to show pussy while sitting at the kitchen table and playing before dinner seems distracting. It takes your mind away from the game itself - in just a few seconds. When you play a five-minute speed match, those seconds are valuable.
If you search for "Sexual harassment, online chess" in Google, you get a number of threads from the forum to chess.com, where several female users write that they are still amazed at how many approaches they get of sexual character when playing chess online . More people ask for advice on what to do to avoid getting such messages. An alternative is to shut down the chat, another to report the user and try to get the person blocked.
Fortunately, several male users in the forum have the final answer to the problem: They suggest that as long as one only switches to a neutral profile image and does not choose to have an avatar where one clearly sees that one is a woman, then the harassment disappears. The user embutido writes: "If you leave everything as it is, maybe you are subconsciously looking for attention from men?"
In other words, we have made the mistake; to be a girl on the internet. If we are to avoid ending up when we play chess, then we must pretend that we are a man. The rhetoric belongs in the 1950s.
At the same time, these users have a straightforward turn. When I talked to my two male friends and chess.com players about the approaches, they just amazed me. They didn't understand what I was talking about, they had never received messages other than "gg" ( good game )!
Chess.com is not a unique case - unfortunately. Rather, it is an example that shows how the stallion is in 2019. According to a report by the Institute for Social Research of 2016 , women experience more gender-based ecstasy than men do, and women are also more prone to sexual harassment and stalking - unwanted and repetitive attention. Being a woman online is completely different than being a man.
It is also tempting to draw parallels from the dark corner of chess.com - not to forget the answers to the forum - to the big problem of the chess in 2019: That sport is still dominated by men. It applies to who is playing and claiming in chess, but also who is the leader in the conversation about it - and sets the premises.
The messages I have received tell something ominously about the work of recruiting more girls which "everyone" agrees is a stated goal. As The Guardian commentator Alisha Matthewson-Grand wrote after the Chess World Cup in 2018, the root of the recruitment problem is that we still lack prominent female chess players in the world top - we lack a female Magnus Carlsen. Junior talents are developing early. So how do we build them? We must at least avoid pushing them down.
For one thing, what the chat room on chess.com is doing with me, a falling star on the chess sky of 28 years, but what about the 15-year-old girl, who may be the start of a promising chess career, who is training play online after school? How can such harassing, at best, slothful messages affect her and her self-image? What does it do with the will and desire to go further on chess?
If the chess environment continues to close its eyes to what is happening in the place where "most people" actually talk and talk about chess - on the internet - they may risk losing more female talents and future stars along the way. In that case, it will be a loss."
Chess.Com CEO response