People are blaming Kramnik, and even GMs like Nihal are criticizing him. What do you all think?

I think at the //very least// Kramnik made his last year absolutely awful to live through with the harassment and accusations. Who knows what buttons that pushed

@DStamateleios said in #78:

It for sure is when you compare a guy who raised his personal concerns about a confirmed cheater which in fact is a very difficult thing to settle however misplacd Magnus judgement was to an online bully who pushes people to make danya's online life (and as we said before life in general since he was living online a lot) miserable for just existing. This isnt a matter of freedom of expression it hasn't been in months. Bullying should never be accepted not to mention this extreme.

Ρε φίλε σκέψου το λίγο.
Carlsen, Dubov and some other top Gms did not participate in tournaments in which Hans was playing for some time.
Then, they participated but refused to play against Hans.
In an online game, Carlsen resigned on move 2. On another game, Dubov never appeared and then said he fell asleep. They were indirectly complaining about Hans being invited. Does this not qualify as bullying? Hans just happened to be mentally stronger. Initially, I believed they were right to do so. I do not like Hans. I think he has cheated(I mean apart from the occassions he admitted himself). But I do not have proof! When Danya died, I realised this sheet is dangerous and that I was making a mistake. I just happened to not be a public figure. But if I was?

Anyway, that was not the main point. You can forget it. The main point was that the only reasonable way to restrict someone and orient their word(before law enforcement), is to tell them they are talking trash when they are talking trash. It doesn't matter who they are. Whether it's Magnus or a 500 elo player. No kindness, no tolerance. This was not done by the majority of the top Gms(with some exceptions) when Kramnik started hunting Danya and others. And as much as I like Carlsen and I have been following him since 2012, he did not do it either. Only some witty answers when an Interviewer asked in random occassions or a sentence every now and then in twitter or something. Is this support?
As for Organizations, they are always too late. When they react, it is to punish, not to prevent.

I mean, if you see a woman getting attacked in the street but you move on without reacting, and then, you see in the news that she died because of an attack in the sreet and you start mourning and act surprised, are you not a hypocrite? And if not hypocrite, are you not at least responsible to some extend?
That was the point I tried to make without success as it seems.

I'd give him 5 years in prison.
If Kramnik never bullied Danya then Danya would still be here. Same as reckless driving.
He is responsible.

even though there is debate over if its kramniks fault we can all agree Danya didnt deserve this :( rest in peace legend :(

Kramnik is the Donald Trump of the chess world.

@ArtofDefeat said in #54:

What did he die of? As far as I know, the cause of death has not been released. So this whole discussion seems stupid to me. Kramnick being an ass currently has no known relevance to the death.

First, you should listen to Daniel’s mother’s statement....

The mother of Daniel Naroditsky, has broken her silence on her son’s death and said that he had been tormented by online accusations that he and others were using computer "chess engines" to cheat.

"There was nothing more important to Daniel than his dignity and his name as a chess player," Naroditsky’s mother, Elena Naroditsky, said. "The ex-world champion was trying to say he’s a cheater."

"Daniel tried to defend himself so much. The whole world was on Daniel’s side," Naroditsky’s mother said. "He played more and did more and more because he was trying to prove that he’s not what he was accused of."

"It’s a tragedy. He was my dearest son. He was 29," Naroditsky’s mother said. "Daniel was such a life. He was so brilliant, so incredibly kind and loving, thoughtful, giving, inspiring."

That statement says nothing anybody didn't already know which was that Daniel was very affected by kramnics accusations. But it also does not say anything about his cause of death which is still unknown and I suspect will remain so for some time. I don't expect anyone to come out and say what happened for real, least of all his mother.

So I am going to refrain from joining in the mob mentality until I know something more about what happened. My intuition tells me there's a lot more to this story and if there wasn't more to it we would have heard it by now.

I will say it one more time, emotions don't lend themselves to good decision making. All this talk of a call to action and other ridiculous knee-jerk reactions are not productive. This has now reached nine pages of unfounded speculation about an event we know virtually nothing. Opinions and estimates do not make a good substitute for facts.

I think important thing is to understand what went wrong and ensure something like this never ever happens again. Here are what I would say contributed to it.

Firstly Kramnik was irresponsible with his unfounded and reckless accusations. I believe he has been told numerous times to stop both because his actions are harmful and his stats are literally junk. Even now he seems unrepentant.

Secondly FIDE also has serious questions to answer. In the earlier Niemann vs Carlsen case I don't think FIDE took the potential harm seriously enough although they did still slap a 10k fine to Carlsen while adding people have to follow the proper processes when reporting cheating. However subsequently when Navara filed a complaint against Kramnik it seems they literally ignored it and did everything in their power not to sanction Kramnik when in reality it was a golden opportunity to stop him from causing further damage that was squandered. I'm sure if FIDE had firmly rebuked Kramnik it would have both stopped his ongoing harassment while also vindicating his victims.

Thirdly I think Chessdotcom has also been a bit irresponsible with how it dealt with cheating complaints. This was mostly with the Niemann case where it did seem they strayed from neutrality and tried convict him on a partisan basis while it seems they did help enable Kramnik's accusations

Fourthly I think even the general chess community has some blame. Far too many people have given Kramnik far too much respect on the basis that he was the former World Champion and is very good at chess. However this doesn't mean he is good at statistics or cheat detection. Kramnik is a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger Effect that coupled with his ego means he's convinced he's an expert when in reality he's clueless while his fans believe his ludicrous claims. At the end of the day rather than treating his accusations seriously he should be treated as a clown with each new unfounded accusation treated with the derision it deserves. It's kind of sad to see that a once great chess player has been reduced to someone spouting paranoid delusions.

Fifthly I think Kramnik's friends are also to blame. To broadly quote from Kramnik I note that "obvious long term problems of Kramnik becoming alarming, requiring urgent measures from people around, while "friends" only cared about hiding it and erase evidence, its rotten to the core". So where were his friends when it was clear Kramnik was causing distress to others and who was there in his life to tell him he was out of line? Does he not have one good friend who can tell him that when university professors disagree with him on statistics that the guy with 30-40 years academic experience in the subject probably knows more than a guy who plucked a few figures out of thin air? Has he surrounded himself with yes men and enablers who don't doubt anything he says.

In conclusion it's important for any public figure to be careful with their words as a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Hopefully people will be more careful with their words in the future and avoid accusations that harm others

Regardless of whether or not Kramnik is legally culpable in Danyas death, his relentless cyber bullying campaign is reprehensible on and of its own. There is nothing to "wait and see", it's all documented on YouTube and X.

IMO, @lichess needs to take action against him and ban him from the platform. Allowing such a person in the community makes it an unsafe space.

If you don't know already, @veteran75 is Vladimir Kramnik.
He has long been banned from chesscom but Lichess seems to hold out.

Re the mother's comment, OK, he was bothered. And that is a shame. But there is a big difference between suicide or OD vs something like an aneurism.

Kramnick is an asshole and I have no problem with people that want him sanctioned for delusional accusations. But sanctioning him for contributing to the death without knowing the cause of death is just bizarre.