by Fade_Dance | 2025-10-26 14:08:35+00:00
This article downplays the extent of Kramnik's online harassment campaign.

The first thing that it is important to note in articles covering this is that Kramnik's cheating allegations are clearly outright trolling and cyberbullying, and should be labeled as such. For example, in a recorded game where Kramnik doesn't see an easy best-move in an end game, he expectedly loses from the blunder, and immediately reports the opposing player for cheating. He reports hundreds and hundreds of people. There are dozens of proven examples of him weaponizing cheating allegations to protect his fragile ego. The intentional weaponization of false allegations is part of the greater cheating problem.

This is an online troll harassing people. The cheating issue is real, and properly addressing it would actually involve addressing mass cheating allegations weaponized as harassment, not giving it credence.

The second point is that this was clearly a personal vendetta against sort. For example, trolling with a "Don't do drugs" post after a recent video where Danya looked like he was in rough shape. If you're serious about pursuing feeding allegations, you should expect the defendant to defend themselves, not use the simple fact that they are defending themselves as an excuse to step up the harassment campaign to personal attacks.

Lastly, the entire situation begs the question of how online harassment and cyberbullying should be handled in the future. The regulatory body that partly gave Kramnik his outsized influence, as well as the greater chess world, arguably needs to do a better job requiring a higher standard of conduct from its professional members (like many other sports). It's no stretch to say that members of a professional organization should be protected from other members harassing them and threatening their livelihood.

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Moving on from cyberbullying, I do have a feeling that Danya was going through something pretty rough personally. I had a somewhat similar situation a few years ago where something I dedicated my life to was used to hurt my reputation. The hard part is knowing you did something great (help people, didn't cheat, build a community you love), being internally proud of what you have built, and then seeing it misconstrued to represent everything you stand against and tie you to those values.

That delta results in internal tension that builds up endlessly, as well as constant stress and in my case even some emotional trauma (where you just lose control and have to scream, that sort of thing). That is combined with a sense of complete powerlessness, and finally a sense of loss as your "calling" loses its magic, which can then lead to self-doubt and even self-hatred ("What if they're partly right after all? What if all this was just a waste of time? If I thought I was doing something good, but everyone else doesn't see it that way, maybe I'm just alone.") those are all real examples from things I've felt at least, and Danya seems to mirror some of those feelings and frustrations in interviews.

It's very sad to lose the magic in something which brought you joy and meaning since childhood, and even worse to have character assassination tied to that. Having it all take place in the public sphere must be even more severely stressful. In my case (in the past), it led to heavy drinking to deal with the overwhelming stress, and while I won't speculate on his situation, he clearly and publicly stated he had severe sleep issues which I also commiserate with. Pacing back and forth at night in a silent room with high cortisol and self-amplifying repetitive negative thoughts doesn't lead to good sleep ritual.