I'm glad the world doesnt work like riot wants leagues chat system to work. Pretty soon flat earther's would be ubiquitous and "9/11" would be synonymous to "inside job".
What im saying is that verbally defending yourself shouldnt be discouraged (which is what riot currently does since they consistently promote that argument that you cant verbally defend yourself) because it incentivizes people to spout off nonsense whenever they see fit since theyll have no consequences as long as they dont use a prohibited word.
It is important to make the distinction between defending based on unfounded statements, eg you shouldnt stoop to their level.
For example if there is a feeder on your team who consistently blames you for not following their engage, then calling them trash is acceptable because theyre playing like trash (by constantly inting even though they are weaker than their opponents). Your argument is based on their poor choices and not simply made up to defame them. In the same situation if the same feeder was blaming you for not assisting their fail engages and you instead decided to tell them to "kys" then that is inappropriate since it has no bearing on the current match and is completely baseless.
Now in the above example riot would argue that both options serve only to enflame the situation and would advise you to simply mute the feeder instead. This is not always the best course of action for two reasons. 1: eventually the feeder could convince your teammates that you are indeed the reason for their failure even though that's not true (ie failing to address false information can lend it some apparent (although false) credibility) 2: Slights against you that go unanswered are further slights against you (ie choosing not to defend yourself can further harm yourself). While many people can choose to bear the wrongs of the 2nd reason, no one should be forced to bear the wrongs of the first reason. Cases such as those can deny players hard earned honors as well as respect at the end of the match. Respect may not be tangible but honor is (as much as virtual accolades are tangible lol) and so now the offending party has done more than simply insult you or defame you they've caused you further slights as well as effective future harm.
What this really comes down to is riot being lazy about moderating discourse so they take a hugely wide brush and just paint everything over with "you cant verbally defend yourself, just mute them" This is quite evident in the automated chat system where we see logs posted almost daily of people getting banned for no valid reason and almost never does riot revert such cases.
TLDR riot is wrong about self defence in chat, it can be done and should be allowed.
