Breaking the Silence

@sgtlaugh said in #650:
> If you say that, then we are on the same page. There is no contradiction.
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> Please read this comment on #593 - lichess.org/forum/general-chess-discussion/blog-ZNTniBEAACEAJZTn?page=60#593
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> The point is, you can never know for sure when physical proof is absent. Not in courtrooms, not outside it. While I do not support vigilante justice, at the same time, not every matter can or should be resolved in a courtroom. In this case, allegations of sexual assault are a very concerning matter. The sexual assault itself is a crime. Ideally, the victims should also have reported this to the police and the authorities. But due to various reasons, such is not the case for most sexual assaults. As such, when USCF or STLCC was notified, they had a moral responsibility to take some sort of countermeasures which they failed to do so for a long time. No one is asking them to take the role of law enforcement.
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> In a court, usually the stakes are higher and so the burden of proof and assessment is more critical. Outside the court, these variables change. So not everything can or should be argued from a law and order perspective.

All I am saying is that they also had a moral responsibility to make sure the allegations were true before punishing them. If I were to allege that you committed a crime against me, would Lichess have a moral responsibility to kick you off the website? Or would the moral thing to do is check if I was telling the truth?

Also, maybe that's why it took so long. They didn't want to just punish people before they were convinced that it was true.

But the issue that I have, and I believe others as well, is that I do not trust the judgement of chess organizations when it comes to criminal matters. If the allegation occurred in a Walmart, would the CEO of Walmart get to decide if the person was innocent or guilty?

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> I am arguing about the possibilities, also the punishment should fit the crime. The death penalty for sexual harassment seems extreme to me. You need to consider all these variables when deciding the actions. Apologies if that felt like a contradiction. I am not against punishing perpetrators.

I also must apologize, I only support the death penalty for actual rape, not sexual harassment.

Over there:

www.chess.com/news/view/wsj-chess-servers-end-support-for-saint-louis-tournaments

@Pashut said in #652:
> Note that Lichess doesn't dispute that no complaints were made before 2020.

A young player’s mother says that in 2017 she alerted top US Chess officials to Ramirez’s behavior.

From the timeline.

@schnitzelater said in #654:
> But the issue that I have, and I believe others as well, is that I do not trust the judgement of chess organizations when it comes to criminal matters. If the allegation occurred in a Walmart, would the CEO of Walmart get to decide if the person was innocent or guilty?

If allegations of misconduct happened at a Walmart, the store has a right and (depending on the type of misconduct) the responsibility to address them. They can and do, usually by removing people from the premises and if it happens a few times a person may be banned for a time or even permanently. Depending on the misconduct, Walmart and/or individuals may also file a police report.

Point is, Lichess (organizations in general) have rules and standards of conduct which they expect members and participants to follow. These organizations have a right and responsibility to uphold and enforce these. They can and do ban or suspend players for not adhering to the rules and also for more serious misconduct which may also be considered criminal.

Lichess (and Chess.com) are saying that they will not use their space to endorse, promote, or otherwise support a couple of organizations for the time being. Their reasoning is that they do not find the conduct of these organizations themselves to be in line with their own standards or what one would expect of chess organizations in general.

www.chess.com/news/view/wsj-chess-servers-end-support-for-saint-louis-tournaments

Found this article in the bottom right of their landing page; in graphic design this placement denotes low importance but atleast it was on their front page?

new.uschess.org/news/us-chess-require-safe-play-training

Thoughts, anyone?

@qu0thraven said in #657:
> If allegations of misconduct happened at a Walmart, the store has a right and (depending on the type of misconduct) the responsibility to address them. They can and do, usually by removing people from the premises and if it happens a few times a person may be banned for a time or even permanently. Depending on the misconduct, Walmart and/or individuals may also file a police report.
>
> Point is, Lichess (organizations in general) have rules and standards of conduct which they expect members and participants to follow. These organizations have a right and responsibility to uphold and enforce these. They can and do ban or suspend players for not adhering to the rules and also for more serious misconduct which may also be considered criminal.
>
> Lichess (and Chess.com) are saying that they will not use their space to endorse, promote, or otherwise support a couple of organizations for the time being. Their reasoning is that they do not find the conduct of these organizations themselves to be in line with their own standards or what one would expect of chess organizations in general.

But you are forgetting about the severity of what was alleged. Sexual harassment is a major crime and should be dealt with in the criminal courts. Even if you think that it should not be a crime and the only punishment be getting fired you are wrong, sexual harassment should be and is a crime.

@somethingpretentious said in #656:
> A young player’s mother says that in 2017 she alerted top US Chess officials to Ramirez’s behavior.
>
> From the timeline.

Thank you. I am sorry, I had missed that particular entry.

You are correct: if a proper complaint was indeed made in 2017, then yes, USCF should have looked into it then. And yes, if that is true and they didn't look into it, then they mishandled it. Big time. No excuses.

However, the mother says it was so. USCF denies ever receiving such a complaint. So, yet again: "she says, they say". :( Personally, I would *love* to see a copy of that complaint (was it made in writing?) to definitively move this out of the realm of (perceived) uncertainty. But we don't have that.

Unfortunately, uncertainty permeates this entire case, despite each of us probably haveing formed an opinion by now. That is why -- and I can't stress this enough -- reports regarding criminal activity must be made to police. Promptly and clearly. Not to a chess club. Not to a federation. To POLICE.

Why do I stress this so much? Because the very fact that no police report was EVER filed (including *after* all this was made public on Twitter, press etc.) doesn't sit well with me. At all. And not just because imho these allegations would have been handled more promptly and efficiently by the police than a chess federation or club ever could, but because a police report gives *credence* to the allegations. It sends a loud and clear message that: "I'm dead serious, this guy really touched me against my will. And he needs to pay for it."

Now, I hear the arguments victims make for not going to police (shame, fear of not being believed, fear of retaliation etc.). But putting your allegations on Twitter doesn't save you from any of that. On the contrary. And even if it did, it's a tradeoff victims must accept in a civilized society. Despite all risks, I strongly believe reporting to police is the ONLY way to get justice and move forward. Going to your local chess club to complain and expecting them to solve this matter "appropriatedly" (?) doesn't cut it.

And one final point regarding this, based on a statement made in bold in Lichess' article: "We invite anyone who wishes to come forward with new or relevant information to contact us by email (contact@lichess.org)."

I think that instead, the article should have read: "We invite the victims to file criminal complaints, and we urge anyone who wishes to come forward with new or relavant information to contact the police for the swift resolution of these cases."

@CyberShredder said in #651:
> These studies don't deal with hige missing values, unfounded reports. These studies shows only percent of accusations that was proven to be false. They don't take unfounded cases into consideration. I thought we discussed it. I checked your link, they mention only those reports, that was classified to be false, they don't deal with unfounded. They mention that some police reports that classified to be false, actually should be classified as unfounded, but they don't mention what percent of unfounded reports classified as false. It's actually vague.

Please read again what I wrote. I quoted www.brown.edu/campus-life/health/services/promotion/sexual-assault-dating-violence/myths-about-sexual-assault-reports to provide an overview of how allegations are misclassified. There are some details there, and if you want to dig deep there's even more. For instance, the previous link has a reference to the following paper:

www.researchgate.net/publication/49689129_False_Allegations_of_Sexual_Assualt_An_Analysis_of_Ten_Years_of_Reported_Cases

The paper has many details, and also under the citations and references sections, there seem to be plenty of references that provide an estimate for unfounded cases. There's even more like, and there are percentage figures in many of them:

www.canlii.org/en/commentary/doc/2006CanLIIDocs573

www.londonpolice.ca/en/about/review-of--unfounded--sexual-assault-cases.aspx

fightthecharges.com/unfounded-sexual-offences/

journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0886260520978190

www.theglobeandmail.com/news/investigations/unfounded-sexual-assault-canada-main/article33891309/

The kind of questions you are answering makes me wonder whether you've actually studied all these references or just taken a glance to validate your own thoughts. I've already explained to you why even though there are unfounded cases, we can analyze and have an estimate for false allegations. I've explained how we can deal with them. There are numerous journal papers published in reputed journals and conferences providing this estimate. On what basis are you questioning its correctness? What's the rationale? This is also a separate topic from the main point of the original blog post.

> I think that what USCF did is an overreaction under social pressure. How this article is one-sided? Dunno, read it, to me it's obvious, just the way it's written.

Really? So they finally took some actions that they should have taken much earlier and even more under social pressure? You actually justify the existence of the blog post and the necessary to break the silence if that's the case :)

> Alleged attackers here not treated with respect, because as some people stated there, "All these innocent until proven guilty messages are misogyinistic"

Can you be specific about how the alleged attackers are not treated with respect? From the original blog post? Don't cherry-pick comments from users who posted here. That's irrelevant.

> Oh, I get it. So it's not innocent until proven guilty, it's guilty until proven innocent now

So far you've provided zero concrete arguments and you keep on misquoting me. I never said that. There is reasonable evidence for the allegations and the charges. There was reasonable evidence for USCF and STLCC to take some actions even if it was late. I merely stated the fact that no one is silencing these alleged attackers since YOU mentioned that they were not given a fair chance to explain their position in the article and it was one-sided.

> Best route sometimes is not to name and shame but to silence and wait. Or if you want to share a story of an alleged victims, at least do it respectfully to an alleged attackers.

This I agree with partially. You shouldn't be impulsive but waiting in silence for too long may not be the best route always. Usually, a balance between the two is ideal. Sometimes you need to act. But you need to be reasonable and objective regardless and what to do can vary from situation to situation. Agreed about the respect part, but I fail to see why you think the article was disrespectful. Perhaps if you be specific it'd help to discuss them. Otherwise throwing vague remarks or judgment will be futile.

@qu0thraven said in #658:
> Found this article in the bottom right of their landing page; in graphic design this placement denotes low importance but atleast it was on their front page?
>
> new.uschess.org/news/us-chess-require-safe-play-training
>
> Thoughts, anyone?

It pushes the onus onto individuals outside the US Chess organisation, and the cost of this training. It also completely falls to address the real problem. These people were reported! The problem was US Chess ignoring or failing to act appropriately on the reports.

@Pashut said in #660:
> Thank you. I am sorry, I had missed that particular entry.

Thank you for this wonderful comment @Pashut. And I think we can finally find some common ground here.

I understand and agree with most of your points. Regarding going to the police, what you said works very well in theory. But unfortunately, we are not there yet in the real world. I fully agree with you that in an ideal world, we should have a supportive unbiased legal system and society that should provide a safe space for everyone. From alleged victims to alleged attackers to everyone.

But we ain't there yet. Don't get me wrong. Although we are not there, we should strive to get there. But what to do in the meantime? Most sexual assault cases don't get reported. You already mention a few reasons but that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's even more. A whole lot of stigma, disbelief, blame-shifting, victim blaming and prejudice goes on here very often. Even between law enforcement and juries. The situation is even worse in developing countries. When some of you say that they should have gone to the local authorities when such assaults happened during the tournament, it sounds good in theory, but in practice, not so much.

In such an imperfect world, is it too much to ask chess federations to intervene and protect their players when there are multiple such allegations? When these incidents do not sit well even between themselves, when their inner staff is heard to crack jokes like how the alleged attackers like young girls? I think that's the bare minimum, don't you? In this imperfect world, would you rather not have them do just the bare minimum if the alleged victims were someone that you knew? Your mother, daughter, sister, or friend? Or would you prefer them to be indifferent and brush off matters like these saying it's not their concern, based on technicalities, potential lawsuits, or other hazards? Sorry, I don't want chess federations or any organizations to act in that way.