Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Online cheating cannot be fully prevented, only detected and banned post-hoc

Erik Allebest · How Chess.com Became the World’s Biggest Chess Community with CEO Erik Allebest · Aug 13, 2026 · at 31:06

Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest discusses the fundamental limits of fair play enforcement in online chess.

0:00 / 0:11exact quote · 11.4s
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“Cheating. It can't be prevented because you can't, you know, you can't put a webcam in every single person's home. But we do do a really good job at catching it and banning people who do that and trying to educate them as well.”

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