*Civilised discussion - regarding cheating titled players on chess.com vs Lichess.org

I am a huge fan of chess youtubers IM John Bartholomew and GM Simon Williams. I watch all their videos religiously especially their longer time control vids (15 minutes each) as I feel it is the most instructive for players trying to improve.

I have noticed though that Simon who plays exclusively on chess.com has been plagued by cheats since starting his series. Admittedly he has only videod 16 games (where I believe about 10 have been engine users.)

John Bartholomew has used Lichess.org to upload a lot of his longer games (over 100 at least?) and rarely encounters a cheat. I saw a recent episode where he did and left to ICC but he seems to have returned now.

My question is why the disparity between both players encountering cheats? I do not believe that Lichess has a better cheat detection than chess.com. I think they are both fighting a losing battle. So why does John apparently face less cheats than Simon?

My own thoughts are this

- the ratings are inflated more here than on chess.com so John plays "2000" players who might be significantly lower in playing strength. Whereas Simon on chess.com is playing 2000+ that either know a lot about chess or cheat

- Lichess encourages fair play by being completely free. (I really want to believe this theory but the majority of cheats Simon faced were free chess.com members)

- John does encounter his fair share of cheats but just doesn't upload his losses ( I doubt this as he has named and shamed cheats in the past)

I'd like to know your thoughts on this subject. I would prefer if the discussion was kept civil as I know cheating is a volatile subject. I'm just curious as to why one encounters more than the other. If a member of the Lichess team feels this discussion isn't appropriate or counter productive then please feel free to delete.

Thanks for reading.

Perhaps the GM is a bigger scalp vs IM to the cheater.

Possibly but I think John is more well known than Simon. If it is about scalps then it is pretty stupid as you didn't scalp a GM - your chess engine did. It's actually quite depressing watching Simon play his longer time controls as he clearly believes in what he is doing (giving us a glimpse into the mind of a GM) but it's ruined by him losing to engines. John doesn't seem to have that problem

Or maybe it's because John is more well known that players are less likely to cheat against him?

Facts:
1. Lichess deals with assisted play often within hours
CC takes minimum of 3 days if lucky
2. Lichess "shadowbans" offenders
CC gives a slap on the wrist, make a public apology and account stands, or encourages a new account to increase revenue.
3. Lichess detection, all the data collected, the analytics gathered is far superior to CC; contrary to what the OP believes.
4. CC's "model" attracts the young, new players with it's advertising, who know in advance they are more likely to last longer before detection, and can easily create dozens of new, concurrent accounts; as the OP is well aware.

Discussing the "Why" one site has more cheaters? Don't see much point. The facts speak for themselves. Actual statistics of those caught are known to a very limited few. CC closes abusers accounts, knowing full well they'll be back in moments with a new account, increasing inflated membership totals.
Lichess deals with issue with a different philosophy that is clearly more effective.

good luck

@mdinnerspace

Interesting points, thank you for your contribution.

I wasn't really wanting to discuss why one site has more cheaters than the other as I believe both have their fair share. I just found it interesting that one appears to run into a lot less cheats than the other at the same time controls.

I don't know what you mean by old "copy-cat" account. I only have one account on here.

Hey 2Q