Who cares? Are you to be judged for the rest of your life based on your behavior as a child?
I’m not sure where I said that? All I’m saying, it’s disingenuous to say “well, he just cheated twice when he was a kid” when he;s literally still a teenage.
From my unlawyerly perspective, it seems that Carlsen has insulated himself from any libel charge.
He doesn’t say that Niemann cheated against him, or even that he did so against someone else in a live tournament. Carlsen stated a belief that Niemann has cheated more recently than he acknowledged, which could refer to an allegation about years-ago online behavior to which he’s become privy.
I can see where Carlsen comes off as being comically arrogant in that statement, at least as far as the general public is concerned. He’s essentially saying “Niemann must have cheated; he didn’t look stressed out as he should have when playing a chess god like me, and beating me while playing black is more proof of hanky-panky.”
Meantime, Niemann has a built-in excuse if his future tournament play is sub-par. He can always say that his performance has suffered due to the mental trauma of being unjustly accused. 
My only point in bringing that up was that he was labeled as a cheater prior to this recent allegation.
Are the best chess engines capable of rating play? If they are, couldn’t they have the game where Niemann beat Carlsen rated, to see if Niemann was playing better than usual or Carlsen worse than usual? It wouldn’t be proof of anything, but it would at least be another price of evidence to consider.
Carlsen needs to display the quiet dignity that Nimsowitsch displayed when he lost to Sämisch.
From the Wiki article:
An article by Hans Kmoch and Fred Reinfeld entitled “Unconventional Surrender” on page 55 of the February 1950 Chess Review tells of the “… example of Nimzowitsch, who … once missed first prize in a tournament in Berlin by losing to Sämisch, and when it became clear he was going to lose the game, Nimzowitsch stood up on the table and shouted, ‘Gegen diesen Idioten muss ich verlieren!’ (‘That I should lose to this idiot!’)”.
They are, although it’s tricky and there are a bunch of confounding factors. The consensus seems to be that Magnus played much worse than usual in this game, and that Niemann played well, but not extraordinarily so.
There is a lot of amateur detective work going on around this, and a large portion of it seems to be nonsense.
Saying he cheated more recently than he has stated is a direct accusation. In addition to that insinuation is defamatory as well.
Hopefully he lives longer than three years after his childhood.
If he were 30 when this event happened, and Carlsen was like, “Half a lifetime ago you cheated, and I think you’re a big cheating cheater,” that’d be one thing. But Carlsen is saying, “Hey, teenager, a few years ago when you were also a teenager you cheated, and I think you’re still a cheating teenager just like you were in 2019.” That’s hardly tarring someone for the rest of their life.
I pointed out above that Carlsen directly accused Niemann of cheating and his childish insinuations will work against him from that point on unless he can provide some proof of cheating. Unless he finds a judge and jury full of chess fans he will lose. They’re going to love the anal bead explanation.
His statement was “I believe that…”
Having played games with known cheaters (caught and/or admitted) in various games, I find it nearly impossible to desire to play with/against them after that. They’ve already displayed a propensity for cheating; what are the odds that THIS TIME they are going to play fair? Were I in his shoes, this would be a case of “The only winning move is not to play.” YMMV.
You’re claiming that means it’s not an accusation?
If I’m making any claim, it’s that his statement that it is his belief PROBABLY insulates him from any legal implications; reputation hits, on the other hand, not so much.
I don’t follow chess; like most things I don’t particularly care about, all of my information is basically from the SDMB. I couldn’t point out Magnus Carlsen in a lineup if you had a gun to my head. But, from the outside, IF… other guy whose name I have forgotten (and I’m posting from my phone and can’t be bothered to minimize this post to look it up) has admitted to/been caught cheating previously, it would be hard for ME to wish to play him. From personal experience, once I know somebody to have cheated at Game X, I personally can’t fathom not looking askance at playing Game X with that person in the future; and that will also extend into other games, as well.
Yes, I take my gaming seriously, why do you ask? 
At least in the US, I’m pretty sure you have to prove intent for a libel suit to succeed. It’s not enough to merely accuse someone of wrong doing incorrectly, you have to have done it knowing you were lying, with the specific intent of harming their reputation or ability to earn income. Much like the cheating charge itself, I don’t see anyone proving that in a court without a direct confession from Magnus that he made the whole thing up.
It’s funny, even as this is going on, I got another two messages tonight from chess.com that a couple of my games have been re-adjudicated because my opponents had “violated fair play“.
I average getting these about once a week, but then I play a lot of blitz games. It’s very strange to me that anyone would bother to do this, but even stranger that an up-and-coming young master-level player would have done it.
In regards to his statement, my understanding is that it was vetted by a lawyer, so I’m pretty sure the words have been combed over carefully to avoid anything actionable.
As to this drama, I’m not convinced Hans cheated in his game vs. Magnus. There’s no really superhuman play going on there, and Magnus did have a pretty bad game. Hikaru Nakamura said on his channel that he doesn’t think Magnus has a game with this low accuracy since 2019.
Now were I a betting man, I’d stake a good amount that Hans has cheated in the last couple years. His rise from a 2400 player to near-2700 player has been unprecedented, from my understanding. But I wouldn’t ruin a person’s reputation on a hunch, no matter how strong it is and how circumstantial evidence may support it.
I think Magnus is handling this rather poorly but, well, since I’m average at best at chess, I enjoy getting the popcorn out and into a little bit of drama.
The most sober take for my money on this is Ben Finegold’s summary:
No it doesn’t. It’s the equivalent of saying “I had my fingers crossed”.
Intent counts in some jurisdictions, but the standard that applies here is acting with reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of the statement. In simpler terms, calling someone a cheater without any evidence would be reckless disregard and intent would be irrelevant.
Didn’t anyone pay attention to that recent highly publicized defamation trial? It’s not a game, it’s not a schoolyard argument, there are no magic words that set you free, you can’t pretend you didn’t mean it or it was a joke.
I hope Niemann sues that pompous ass into the ground.
The Depp/Herd trial? I don’t think that’s relevant to this situation.
Of course it is. It was a defamation trial.
And all defamation trials are exactly the same?