Is chess.com too lax on racial abuse?

A couple of months ago,  I received several open racial insults from a chess.com member (pictures attached). I of course reported the said member, but nothing significant happened. This is not an isolated occurrence (as a quick search on chess.com forums shows) - and I wanted to verify the extent of it. 

I created two profiles, one with a US flag and one with an African flag (which I won't name to avoid stigma). I played 1000 bullet games with each.

With the former, I was insulted 4 times in the chat and once by message. All insults were fairly general. 

With the latter I was insulted 12 times on the chat. 2 of which were openly racist (among which, one suggested I should kill myself), and 1 was very suggestively racist. I received no messages. 

None of the players sending insults (racial or not) have had their accounts closed as a result. As a side comment we have probably all noticed the rapid pace at which accounts of cheaters get closed. 

Of course, this isn't a scientific study, and the difference in result could be due to statistical randomness or any kind of bias (playing at different times in the day, in the week, maybe my play style was biased depending on the account used, etc...). Though it does suggest some pervasive racism in the community goes on largely without any serious sanctions.

As a result I believe it is worth at least asking the question: should chess.com treat racial abuses more severly than it does at the moment?

All opinions welcome.

(As a disclaimer, I no longer play on chess.com, and am not planning on ever playing on chess.com again - I have found that the community is far less toxic on at least one other platform, and I much prefer that)

[images removed -- MS]

The site handles each situation based on severity and history. While an account may not get closed, it may receive a long or permanent mute. In the case of a mute, you would be able to tell if anything happened, though you may receive a generic message that someone you reported was handled. I don't recall the exact wording.

@Martin_Stahl, I appreciate that, but it isn't the question. The question is: is a temporary or even permanent mute enough to compensate the fact that some of us periodically face racial abuse? Clearly you do not understand the impact it has on people, even if anonymous, it remains a form a bullying. It happened enough times for me to feel disgusted about playing bullet chess on chess.com.

I understand your point about freedom of expression, but putting Trump voters, and such, into the same bucket as people using hate speech is quite disrespectful to them, and entirely missing the point I am making.

Hate speech (inc. racial insults), same as death threats, are sanctioned criminally in many countries around the world. So why are they treated the same way as a normal insult on chess.com? Racism is not freedom of speech. I am not talk about people pointing out to my flag, I am talking about repeated messages of the like: "weak stupid black N.....". Binomine - is that freedom of expression to you?

I said nothing about freedom of expression in my post.  Never once did I invoke any sort of right. 

@binomine: ok, so your point is that there is an implicit approval of otherwise legally punished behaviors by the chess.com community - all that to allow for more players to play and play well (there was no need to delete the post btw). I do not think it is a valid argument - if people feel threatened playing on chess.com, they will stop playing here (as it is the case for me), there are plenty of alternative options - by doing so you you are biasing the community towards more toxic and violent players. It degrades the quality of the experience and also the level of the game (from my experience, people are more toxic at the 1600-1800 level than at the 1900-2100 level, but that's a limited sample size).

Danny Rensch said the other day that there are six million daily users of the site.  There's no way for the support staff and moderators to review more than a small portion of what gets said. 

Tens of thousands of accounts are closed for abuse every month. More are muted.

/ October 2021 report. https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-com-month-in-review-october-2021

@justbefair: but the abuse do get reviewed eventually when reported, I am not questioning the job that is being done by moderators - I am questioning the policy, and whether the sanctions that are applied to racist slur when an abuse is detected are appropriate. It does not require any more work than what is currently being done.

So, just to be clear - the question is: is the level of sanctions applied to racist insults appropriate, when a racial insult is identified?

Or, phrased differently: should racial insults be treated with the same level of severity as other, more general insults, or should they be treated more severely?

Some type of insults deserve an immediate boot imo, among them racial ones.

Firstly you need to grow a thick skin . I am sorry you had to go through it but you are not the only one who faces racial attacks . 

Secondly in game chat isn't stored if I am not mistaken. So if you want action to be taken against someone, you need to take a screenshot and report by mailing the staff . 

So what are you recommending? A zero tolerance policy? No more mutes?  Every abuse report results in a closed account? 

@Anonymous_Dragon: that is precisely what I did (in all instances), and it is also because I am not the only one facing racial abuse on chess.com that I open this discussion (please read my initial post...many people seem to be having the same problem) - as for a growing a thick skin, to me that means standing up to people that abuse others and perpetuate a culture where this type of behavior is acceptable - so I'll return that point to you: grow a thick skin and don't curb to the people that insult you based on your skin color. 

@justbefair: again, I think you are not getting my point. What I would like (that's just me, and in no way what I expect) is for racial abuse (and any other verbal attacks that are, in most countries around the planet, considered as illegal, such as death threats) to result in immediate account closure - other insults can be dealt with the way they are being dealt with at the moment. 

What I think needs to happen, however, is that chess.com deeply considers this question, runs an appropriate study to check if the platform is or not a mean for racists to slander at people without sanctions - then based on data take appropriate policy actions and decide for the community (not for me, as I said, I can just change website) whether or not racial insults should be sanctioned the same way as other insults.

Nope, I've been insulted and didn't report, and if I would I'd not expect something like that. Also I myself have been warned for foul language, and I appreciate that. But how can you expect someone who resorts to racial abuse to take a warning or be reasoned with? That's the type of thing you can have a zero tolerance on without any worries. As far as I know, it is what happens with cheating. 

What post? We may never know what was said.

Wasn't there... already a massive 300+ reply thread about this last week?

The way your original post has been written it gives more of an impression that those racial comments have emotionally disturbed you and hence your decision to play on the site more often .

It doesn't make you come across as someone who is strong 

Every other week I see a thread on the forums with someone complaining about them being abused . Sure there's nothing wrong in complaining about it . 

But what's common in all these forums that I have seen , all the victims are annoyed about the fact that the abuser is not banned yet . But y'all don't understand that , game chats are most probably not saved . So simply hovering over their profile and clicking the report button does nothing . Instead you need to mail the screenshots . And if you do that action is taken within 2 days and there won't be any need for you guys to scream aloud in the forums