Sheesh, the fake accounts
Well, that’ll teach me a lesson. I replied with a quick, not too-elaborate, note to an 
@AP_Sports account that happened to mention the word for the head covering women in some countries towards the east wear. Ugh – my phone’s been buzzing all night.
There are two main lessons I can learn from this-
1. Don’t ask questions on some news accounts (or to some people) – a lot of them just use Twitter as outbound blasts to get you to come to their sites. They don’t interact. That was my first problem.
2. My second problem was tweeting about anything that can be spun politically. I should have thought about that.
Anyway – I’ll link to their tweet so you know what I’m talking about-
Here’s their tweet:
Crosstable: Chess player joins US after she was allegedly banned by Iran for not wearing hijab https://t.co/O0qv2PuZ02 pic.twitter.com/mY6Tal6tUZ
— AP Sports (@AP_Sports) October 2, 2017
I only know of the story in a weird circular way. I like Chess, but I suck at it. I like chess references and analogies in movies and books, even though they go over my head a lot. A long time ago I bought a personal finance book called Rich As A King (and listen to the accompanying podcast now and again).
The author of that book makes comparisons to setting up your finances to a chess game. It’s a good book and has good ideas. Chess Grandmaster Susan Polgar co-wrote the book. So I learned who Susan Polgar is. Great career, interesting history.
Anyhoo- last year or the year before I heard her name mentioned on “normal news” and I sat up because “I know that name”. She was (or is?) in charge of FIDE’s Commission for Women’s Chess. Her name was in the news because of some drama. (In my reply to AP I thought she had been the equivalent to the national team coach.)
There was drama [short version] because Iran was awarded hosting rights for a big chess tournament. In Iran, all women players would have to wear a hijab. Iran is also known for suppressing women’s rights.
The leading US player at the time, Nazi Paikidze, said although she respects Iranian people, she didn’t think the country should have been awarded the women’s tournament and wouldn’t wear the head covering.
Polgar then got herself involved with the drama by saying:
But Hungarian Grandmaster Susan Polgar said in a statement that she would have “no issues with wearing a headscarf as long as it is the same for all players”.
She said: “When I visited different places with different cultures, I like to show my respect by dressing up in their traditional style of clothing . No one asked me to do it. I just do it out of respect.”
Long story short- there was back and forth between Polgar and Paikidze and the hosts of the tournament. Of course that story got spun in various ways and I should have remembered that part.
So when I saw that AP Sports story called “Chess player banned by Iran over hijab switches over to US”
I should have read the story and researched more before erroneously thinking AP Sports’ authors would tweet back with clarification like other writers I follow. Now I have to go back and block a bunch of fake accounts.
Which brings me to another thing. Why doesn’t Twitter block fake accounts?
One other thing- Supposedly, the Iranian player just switched Chess federations, she didn’t defect or join the national team.
links:
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/215175/us-female-chess-champion-nazi-paikidze-refusing-to-wear-hijab-in-2017-championship-iran
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/female-chess-hijab-iran-world-championships-tehran-anger-a7337876.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/29/female-chess-players-accuse-governing-body-of-sex-discrimination/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naz%C3%AD_Paikidze
