Chess.com Is Allowing Abuse Toward Children in Bughouse - and Ignoring It

I’m posting this publicly because Chess.com support has repeatedly ignored my requests, and this issue demands serious attention.

My 6-year-old son loves playing chess—especially Bughouse. Unfortunately, when he plays, he’s often exposed to verbal abuse, inappropriate language, and hostile behavior from both teammates and opponents. Some players lash out when they lose, bypassing profanity filters or using emotionally abusive language that no child should ever see. While this doesn't represent all players, a small but harmful group is allowed to behave this way with zero accountability.

In the past, I enabled Safe Mode for his account. I also disabled game chat and turned on every available privacy filter. These settings work for regular chess games, but they do not work for Bughouse. At one point, they did—but that changed. Chess.com seems to have quietly removed protections for Bughouse, and now abusive players can once again freely communicate with young children.

I’ve contacted support multiple times asking for the Bughouse chat filter to be restored or for new protections to be added. Every message has been ignored.

My son is too young to know how to report or block users—and again, he shouldn’t have to. No abusive message should ever reach a 6-year-old on a platform that claims to be family-friendly and educational.

Again, Bughouse chat is not safe for children, and puts them at risk, even with all available protection and privacy settings enabled.

• Chess.com staff: You need to act. Reinstate working chat filters for Bughouse and restore meaningful protections for young users.
  
  This issue warrants serious attention. I urge the Chess.com team to pursue all appropriate avenues to ensure that children are protected from abuse on this platform.

Thank you for reading. I hope this reaches someone who can make a difference.

Try Chesskid.com. iIt is kid friendly. No chat is allowed.

The minimum allowed age for Chess com is 13.

https://support.chess.com/en/articles/11070988-why-do-i-need-parental-consent

Chess com tries hard to discourage abusive chat but it is impossible to monitor millions of players.

Translation, "I'm violating Chess.com TOS, please cater to my whims"

That's really unfortunate I hope this problem gets solved soon

Yes but kids under the age of 13 are allowed to play on chess.com with parental consent. Also chesskid does not have bughouse, and as the guy said this would all easily be fixed if chess.com just brought back blocking chat in bughouse

It is likely impossible to cover all such words, especially "replacements" for already forbidden words

Bughouse is too toxic sometimes, there are many toxic players that use abusive language just because someone didn't do well. I experinced it many times too.

Live chats are not moderated enough, even if you report them it won't do anything at all. There should be a chat filter that detects spam and abusive language. This is just a bad way of chess.com which I dislike. I agree with you but on the other hand Bughouse is a team variant, which means you'll use the chat to communicate. And that makes it toxic sometimes. You might rather playing Bughouse in OTB or in more kid-friendly sites instead of chess.com.

Also, I just wanted to say playing and knowing Bughouse at 6 years old is impressive!

It is interesting how the article about Parental Consent differs from the User Agreement.

From the "Parental Consent" article (https://support.chess.com/en/articles/11070988-why-do-i-need-parental-consent):

"If you're younger than the minimum age required in your country, your parent or legal guardian will need to complete our Parental Consent Form", i.e. users under the minimal age (e.g. 13, depends on a country) are allowed if there is the consent from an adult

From the User Agreement (https://www.chess.com/legal/user-agreement):

"To enter into this Agreement, use the Services, and/or create an account with us, you must be at least 13 years of age. If you are not of legal age in your jurisdiction -- but are at least 13 years of age - then your parent or legal guardian must consent to this Agreement on your behalf prior to your use of the Services and you may only use the Services with the consent and involvement of your parent or legal guardian", i.e. users under the minimal age (e.g. 13) are not allowed, and users between the minimal age and the legal age (e.g. 18) need the consent of an adult

Chess.com could easily address this by giving parents the option to disable free chat and allow only the preset partner communication buttons to go through - like "knight," "rook," "no knight," "trades good," etc. ChessKid already uses a system like this, allowing for safe but limited communication such as "good move" or "good game."

Chess.com used to have this safeguard in place, but for some inexplicable reason, it was removed.

Reinstating this feature would preserve the teamwork aspect of Bughouse while protecting players—especially children—from toxic or abusive messages. It’s a simple, effective fix that could make a meaningful difference.

inb4thelock

I only find bughouse fun with my friends IRL. It is too frustrating online with randoms.

now I wanna do bughouse lol
let's see how mad someone can get when they learn that they lost to a teenybopper
in all seriousness thought, chesskid is probably better if this is a problem.

(1) I've witnessed accounts closed for less so, no, it isn't true that they don't care. I hope you reported the abusers.

(2) I don't know why turning off chat isn't an option with Bughouse. You're right to complain and I'm confident they'll change that.