No one is defending him, but the burden of proof is on the one making the claim that he is cheating. I just don't think there is enough yet to pursue anything further.

I think the Indonesian incident is different because we saw a person that had never played a rated game claim (through a representative) that they got to a an IM level of skill by just playing computers for a few years. That is not impossible, but would imply the discovery of one of the most amazing and interesting chess prodigies in chess history. Plus, it was testable, which to his credit, he took the test and failed. Most people attacking Levy and others were just saw it as a big guy vs little guy and an opportunity to stick it to the Man and had no knowledge of what really happened.

The Hans thing is different. It's not unprecedented for the World Champion to lose to another grandmaster, and even if he cheated, how can we prove it without evidence? If we tried to test it after the fact and had them play in a room with no electronic devices, Hans would probably lose as expected, and it leaves us right where we are.

I wish Carlsen could speak without repercussion on what 'proof' he has or even what really raises his suspicion. He has to have more than just "I lost to an inferior player that cheated as a 12 and 16 year old". But, to be fair, Hans may have cheated more than this and he's only 19 years old (3 years removed from his last admitted instance of cheating).

It's like Finegold said about it "Maybe he cheated, maybe he didn't, Carlsen just looks like a jerk for quitting the round robin" (I'm paraphrasing).

Probably the only good thing from this is live feeds will probably be delayed by 15 minutes going forward, which they should have been doing all along.

The only reason I would entertain the idea Hans cheated and investigate further is not just that he has a history of cheating, but he has a history of streaming. Some streamers will do the most asinine things to get attention and grow their audience (in fact, this is why Hans cheated at 16). But I feel like a hypocrite for saying that, we shouldn't let a few bad apples cause us to judge a book by its cover.

Jacob Aagard gives a good defense of Hans but again, generally the burden of proof lies on the person making the claim.