Because of “enemy” articles
Russia blocks largest online chess platform
4/25/2022 1:56 p.m
Russia has shut down the online chess platform chess.com. The world’s largest community, with almost 30 million members, has not been accessible since Sunday. Reason: The platform published two hostile articles about Russia.
The “chess.com” website is now no longer accessible to all Russian chess players. This was announced by the Russian information and communications authority Roskomnadzor at the weekend. The official reason: The platform published two anti-Russian articles. Since blocking individual articles is not possible, the authority blocked the entire platform directly.
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The first of the two articles in question was published on February 26 under the headline “On the invasion of Ukraine”. In it, “chess.com” condemned the brutal Russian attack on the neighboring country and answered questions from users. The platform also stated that it had already blocked the accounts of sanctioned oligarchs and no longer wanted to display Russian and Belarusian flags. Individual Russians like Grandmaster Sergey Karjakin, who publicly spoke out in favor of the war, were banned from tournaments.
The second article criticized by the Russian government appeared on March 19 under the title “Ukrainian chess players in times of war”. In it, several Ukrainian players described the dramatic situation in their home country. For the Russian government, both this and the previous article fall into the category of “spreading misinformation.” The portal, in turn, reiterated its position on the war while stating: “We will continue to welcome members from Russia who are defying the Russian government’s ban and playing on ‘chess.com’.”
Putin friend Karjakin reacted to the blocking of “chess.com” via Twitter and wrote: “Chess.com is blocked on Russian territory. All because of the business policy of the site, which spreads fake news about Russia and removes flags from Russian users.”