So many people are cheating nowadays. What happened?

@chessmistakezzz said ^

Cheaters are untouchable, there isn't any effective solution to detect them.

It looks bizzare when a ten-days-old account states that with such confidence.

@ILikeBlitz said ^

Cheaters are untouchable, there isn't any effective solution to detect them.

It looks bizzare when a ten-days-old account states that with such confidence.

And you also means that the person behind this account has played chess for 10 days. Are you actually a GM? Is it just a label to deceive other people?

@lizani said ^

Shock! Horror! There are cheaters!
Is the city where you live in free of crime? Why should an online community be any different?
More than 70 million in the USA have a criminal record i.
e. roughly 1 in 5. That gives you an idea of how common it is to break the laws.

When speaking of records, sometimes it's good not to have leaderboards, as they would only make the situation worse. (I'm fine with the existing Lichess leaderboards as well as with the absence of the Lichess correspondence leaderboard, which could make the situation worse.)

@chessmistakezzz said ^

Cheaters are untouchable, there isn't any effective solution to detect them.

It looks bizzare when a ten-days-old account states that with such confidence.

And you also means that the person behind this account has played chess for 10 days. Are you actually a GM? Is it just a label to deceive other people?

You misinterpreted my words, I didn't mean that. (In fact, I was rather curious about your earlier online activities, whether you closed a previous account and if you had a good reasons for it. Every account has sometimes been new, there is nothing wrong with it, but when there are too many new accounts around, it might contribute to mistrust.)
I'm a GM with a verified title, have been there for several years and there are thousands of games to document my level, both online and over the board. This is my alt account, the moderators as well as a few other people know my identity.
But why should we trust your confidence when we know almost nothing about your previous activities?

@ILikeBlitz said ^

Cheaters are untouchable, there isn't any effective solution to detect them.

It looks bizzare when a ten-days-old account states that with such confidence.

And you also means that the person behind this account has played chess for 10 days. Are you actually a GM? Is it just a label to deceive other people?

You misinterpr...

I and you dont want to know the real life identity of each other(ok, I am just a normal person). But I think what I said is true, the only way to detect cheaters is having more moderators like you(never be enough). If you are curious about my earlier online activity, I want to be anonymous(you can think I am a liar) because the all information about me in the internet is about my real life.

@Viohl said ^

Cheaters are untouchable,

That is incorrect, and you can verify this yourself by reading through forum posts on topics such as "My rating isn't changing," "I can't sign up for a tournament," and so on. You can view the fraud detection source code on GitHub. Additionally, you can check out Lichess's annual report on the measures ta...

I read the ToS, and I know that when a cheater is detected, lichess will direct he/she to play with another cheater. I didnt challenge a GM knowledge( I said we need more people like him).

@KMcGeoch said ^

My summary of the article is it sounds like a cheater was detected by lichess algorithm and then paired up against other cheaters.

Well, that 's interesting!

I was looking at a user's profile (Rezzy32) who had their account restricted for violating the terms of service to see whether there were any obvious signs of cheating in their games. To my surprise, all their opponents going back months also had their accounts restricted, and I did wonder whether these were fake accounts of the same individual used for manipulating the ratings. What you said about cheaters being paired, though, makes a lot of sense.

The relationships and community structures that once helped make OTB chess trustworthy have changed since rating systems were introduced. These structures cannot simply be transferred to the digital world. In OTB play, familiarity, repeated interactions, and a shared community can encourage honesty and accountability. Online, however, people often interact within separate bubbles, where both the best and worst aspects of human behavior can become amplified.

What we can easily transfer online is a rating number; reputation, however, is much harder to carry over. It can be damaged by people downvoting posts out of anger or reacting impulsively, sometimes without knowing the person behind the account. No algorithm can guarantee honesty. Ultimately, trust still depends on human behavior, accountability, and the relationships people build with one another.

Online, millions of people interact without necessarily having a shared future or an ongoing relationship. Under these conditions, there may be less incentive to extend trust, keep one's word, or uphold the norms that tend to develop within a close-knit community.