6 ms·
Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor
- postexitus 1y agoWhat was the harassment TR/TM was receiving and what was the libel they directed at MG? (juicier gossip please)
- mmaunder 1y agoYes yes. If we're going to keep this on the front page, we need more juice from the squeeze.
- fancyfredbot 1y agoDr Garrett is chiefly accused of an online campaign of material which is (variously) criminal, illegal or offensive. The criminal matters alleged include cybercrime, hate crime, blackmail, issuing threats of violence or death, and matters adjacent to terrorism. Other illegal matters alleged include defamation, harassment and online abuse. Offensive matters alleged include material that is variously racist, antisemitic, misogynist, homophobic or otherwise hateful or discriminatory, sexually incontinent, or drugs-related. Dr Garrett is alleged to have waged this campaign through the medium of IRC ‘sockpuppet’ accounts – accounts under pseudonymous user nicknames intended to be a vehicle for distributing material anonymously and deniably. You can see the harassment they were recieving here. There was some pretty vile stuff directed at Rianne in particular. https://news.tuxmachines.org/n/2023/08/11/Garrett_Committing_Crimes_Since_Last_Year.shtml https://news.tuxmachines.org/n/2023/08/11/Garrett_Committing...
- postexitus 1y agoThis is a wild read. Reminds me of blogs written by the Temple OS guy. I wonder how they decided that this is coming from MG - there must be a backstory.
- tptacek 1y agoMust there be? Have you seen the rest of the site?
- postexitus 1y agolooking at the rest of the site - not so sure. They seem to be having the same type of attacks directed towards many people. http://techrights.org/o/2021/04/21/libel-campaigns/ http://techrights.org/o/2021/04/21/libel-campaigns/ Weirdly enough, mjg59_ was part of those? https://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techrights-190922.txt https://techrights.org/irc-archives/irc-log-techrights-19092... Another internet rabbit hole.
- tptacek 1y agoYeah I was going to write "I feel kind of bad for these people because it feels like there may be some untreated mental illness involved" but then I thought if I wrote that it was going to wind up on its own page clipped as "I feel kind of bad for these people" followed by a blurb saying "See? We told you Matthew Garrett eats cats."
- marc-h38 1y agoIf you ignore Matt for a moment (really hard, I know), the page https://techrights.org/wiki/Matthew_J_Garrett/ https://techrights.org/wiki/Matthew_J_Garrett/ is the most stunning demonstration of how NOT to react to trolling. The "documentation" effort behind it made the trolls harassing that couple more successful than I thought was ever possible. "Don't feed the trolls": yet that site is a city-size open buffet giving the trolls massive exposure and encouraging them to come again and again for more. Which they kept doing because they were getting exactly what they were after: an amazing amount of attention, time and hurt. Unbelievable. Why didn't they restrict access their IRC server / channels for a while? If IRC can't do that, then it's a good thing it died. Or was that server left wide open out of some extreme (and: very naive) "freedom" ideology maybe? No, you can't just leave your door wide open to everyone using the Internet = billions of random people. How much more evidence of that do people need?
- pseudolus 1y ago[flagged]
- mythz 1y agoBasically Matthew Garret sued owners of www.techrights.org and news.tuxmachines.org for libel, was successful and was awarded £70,000 in damages. > In my judgment, in all these circumstances, the minimum sum necessary to convince a fair-minded bystander of the baselessness of the allegations against him, to vindicate his reputation and restore his standing, and to compensate him for the consequences he has suffered, is £70,000.
- jmclnx 1y agoThanks, I had noticed Techrights had it out for MG, but I never understood why. I still do not know the reason for TR to go after him.
- jeroenhd 1y agoAccording to the judgement, it appears that techrights and tuxmachines do experience real harassment and have convinced themselves that MG is behind it all. From their perspective, they're retaliating with the same force MG is supposedly using against them. I could understand that, if MG was actually behind the harassment, which this lawsuit would be the best place possible to lay out their proof for but ended up not being convincing enough not to cost them 70k pounds. I doubt they'll be convinced that MG isn't behind the attacks, but hopefully their weird lashing out against him will stop now. I hope TR/TM do find and stop the harassment they receive, because as much as their libel is a problem, they actually are victims themselves.
- mbreese 1y ago> ended up not being convincing enough From my limited (non-lawyer) reading of this, they didn't actually offer any evidence. I'm not sure if they had any evidence or not. But it appears that they represented themselves and didn't go through the proper procedures for offering evidence or witnesses. So all they could do was cross-examine. My reading (from just the judgement posted) is that it is a sad thing that it came to a legal dispute at all.
- 1y ago
- rmoriz 1y agoIRC is back. >This is a dispute between prominent ‘free software movement’ activists. The free software movement advances a philosophy and practice which values the freedom of users to create and share software enabling internet access, and challenges the dominance of ‘big tech’ software and systems over the online experience. That includes a preference for internet relay chat (‘IRC’), an online instant messaging system dating in origin from the 1990s, over the big social media platforms. The challenge the free software movement makes is not only of a technical, but also of a social, economic or ethical nature, and it espouses some wider sets of values accordingly
- raphlinus 1y agoMatthew's side of the story is here: https://mastodon.online/@mjg59@nondeterministic.computer/115581961773157620 https://mastodon.online/@mjg59@nondeterministic.computer/115...
- ceejayoz 1y agoDirect link: https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/115581959497817474 https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/115581959497817474
- hamdingers 1y agoHere's the other side, for what it's worth: https://news.tuxmachines.org/n/2025/11/20/Today_s_Judgement.shtml https://news.tuxmachines.org/n/2025/11/20/Today_s_Judgement....
- tptacek 1y agoA grim portent for their mental health, given the attempt to reframe a judgement that demolished them and called them "character assassins" as supportive. Really, though, this is the first time I've ever looked at TechRights for real, and the whole place is very... Always Sunny meme.
- rideontime 1y agoImagine me wearing my context hat and context shirt, pointing to my sign that reads "I require context."
- TRiG_Ireland 1y agoThe first four paragraphs of the judgment lay out most of it. Matthew Garrett's summary at https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/115581959497817474 https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/115581959497817474 is as follows: > In and around 2023, Roy and Rianne Schestowitz were subject to a horrific campaign of online harassment. Unfortunately they blamed me for it, and in turn wrote and published an astonishing array of articles making false accusations against me. Last year, I sued them in the high court in London. In turn, they countersued me for harassment. The case was heard last month and I'm pleased to say that the counterclaim was dismissed and I prevailed in my case. The court awarded me £70,000 in damages. I've never heard of any of these people before, so for now I'm taking that as true at face value, given that he won.
- NohatCoder 1y agoTL;DR: Defendants Roy and Rianne Schestowitz were the targets of online harassment. They decided that claimant Matthew Garrett was behind it, and initiated their own hate campaign against him, in particular using their websites www.techrights.org and news.tuxmachines.org to do so. The defendants did a very poor job of going to court, even by the standards of amateurs representing themselves, producing almost no evidence, none of which the judge found to be relevant. Damages of £70K were awarded.
- stebalien 1y agoFor anyone interested, the story is told in the "truth defense" section: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/kb/2025/3063#lvl_5_2 https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/kb/2025/3063#lv...
- bawolff 1y agoThat was a wild ride. > Mr Hamer referred to what he considered to be racist attacks on Dr Garrett’s lawyers, posted on Techrights, which he described as probably the worst example he had seen of such conduct. So these people's response to getting sued was to make racist comments about the person suing them's lawyer?! Keeping it classy.
- fancyfredbot 1y agoI had never heard of techrights before. It seems to have a lot of angry/nasty articles. There's a huge amount of paranoia and hatred towards big tech. A lot of personal attacks against individuals and his former employer. I find myself questioning whether the authors are entirely sane. Can anyone confirm whether it is (or was?) really a respectable/serious free software site?
- parl_match 1y agocomplicated. sometimes, they do real and solid reporting. on the other hand, there's a reason multiple tech-focused communities ban their articles i personally am happy to see this judgement, their attacks on mjg are unhinged and misguided
- fancyfredbot 1y agoExample of real solid reporting?
- parl_match 1y agoI don't think I will, thank you. Feel free to Google it.
- fancyfredbot 1y agoI was slightly confused by that response but after trying (and failing) to discover any solid reporting by googling myself I at least understand reticence to condone anything on that site.
- em-bee 1y agoone thing that i do find worth condoning is his staunch support for RMS.
- someone_eu 1y agoIt's a QAnon of FOSS.
- mjg59 1y agoThe final order implementing the judgement isn't out yet so I'm not going to go into too much detail here as yet, but there's additional publicly available information I can share: The original claim: https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/Claims.pdf https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/Claims.pdf The defence and counterclaim: https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/Defence_Counterclaim.pdf https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/Defence_Counterclaim.pdf The associated schedule of harassment: https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/Schedule.pdf https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/Schedule.pdf The reply to the defence and counterclaim: https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/Reply.pdf https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/Reply.pdf
- nikanj 1y agoDo lawsuits ever really end, or do the parties just run out of money? Isn’t the SCO v. Linux thing still shambling on in some court?
- mjg59 1y agoOther than reaching agreement over the order to implement the judgement, this is likely over - my understanding is that an appeal could only occur if the judge made an error of law, and they would need to convince another judge of this before being granted permission to appeal.
- rwmj 1y agoWhat about the fact that - incredibly - the page defaming you is still up on their website? Surely the judge won't take kindly to that?
- mjg59 1y agoAs of yet there isn't an order associated with the judgement - that's expected to be something negotiated between the parties. I'm unqualified to say what impact continuing to publish the material has on that process.
- sevensor 1y ago
- Scott-David 1y ago[flagged]
- chris_wot 1y agoI feel for Matthew. Apparently there is an entire chapter about me on an anti-Wikipedia website that advances some quite literally absurd claims. I’ve been aware of it for some time, being simultaneously amused and disturbed by the unhinged nature of both the material and the originator. If this is how I feel about a discredited and largely uninfluential website, one can only imagine how Matthew feels given how widely read the unhinged claims on tuxmachines were against him.
- kragen 1y agoParagraph 25 describes what this is all about: > Dr Garrett is chiefly accused of an online campaign of material which is (variously) criminal, illegal or offensive. The criminal matters alleged include cybercrime, hate crime, blackmail, issuing threats of violence or death, and matters adjacent to terrorism. Other illegal matters alleged include defamation, harassment and online abuse. Offensive matters alleged include material that is variously racist, antisemitic, misogynist, homophobic or otherwise hateful or discriminatory, sexually incontinent, or drugs-related. Dr Garrett is alleged to have waged this campaign through the medium of IRC ‘sockpuppet’ accounts – accounts under pseudonymous user nicknames intended to be a vehicle for distributing material anonymously and deniably. Many posts from these accounts are reproduced in the articles complained of. Dr Garrett is also repeatedly alleged to be an uncontrolled user of illegal class A drugs, principally crack cocaine. The evidence for the allegations was apparently very thin (¶¶59–60): > First, the defence relies on an incident a few years prior to the sockpuppet campaign, in which Dr Garrett admittedly registered himself online in two borrowed names for the purpose of making a rhetorical or satirical point about the owner of those names. Dr Garrett’s evidence is that he did so openly, and with the knowledge of the owner (who had himself vacated the names in order to borrow another user’s nickname – which was in part Dr Garrett’s point in also doing so). Dr Schestowitz clearly takes exception to that particular piece of theatricality as a major breach of netiquette in its own right, and regards it as a sign or symptom of propensity for sockpuppetry. But the incident in question, on its face, is plainly something quite different from the covert use of sockpuppet accounts to publish illegal or offensive material, and is not in my judgment capable of indicating any sort of propensity to do that. > Second, it is said there was an incident in which Dr Garrett’s own named account and one of the sockpuppet accounts experienced simultaneous dropped connections. If established, that could indicate dual operation by a single individual. The evidence from the Claimant is that the dropped connections were not in fact simultaneous. I have no evidential basis for doing otherwise than proceeding on that basis. This pleading cannot in the circumstances support an inference of Dr Garrett’s authorship of the sockpuppet posts. ¶¶61–75 have further, even weaker evidence.
- bilekas 1y ago> Dr Garrett is alleged to have waged this campaign through the medium of IRC ‘sockpuppet’ accounts And people say IRC is dead!
- EvanAnderson 1y agoI don't know anything about the parties involved but I really enjoyed reading the document. A skilled person writing well and offering detailed descriptions of background and process is always attractive to me.
- mjg59 1y agoI was extremely impressed with the attention that the judge paid to the entire exercise, and the manner in which she conducted the trial.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rstat1 1y agoIts WILD to me seeing Techrights described as "well-established, respected and trusted"
- bigfatkitten 1y agoI remember Roy Schestowitz from cross-posted flame wars coming out of comp.os.linux.advocacy at least 25 years ago. He was not a popular figure even back then, for reasons of his own making.
- tzs 1y ago> Fourth, both websites are well-established. It is conspicuous that each has been active over two decades; that is a significant marker in the field. Dr Garrett’s evidence is that they are serious, sought-after, well-regarded, popular and trusted in the anglophone free software community, including for news, campaigning and educational content. Neither Dr nor Mrs Schestowitz suggested otherwise. When did techrights.org become well respected and trusted!? Last time I looked at it a few years ago it was like it had always been. Basically what you'd get if idiots like the QAnon people had directed their attention to free software instead of politics.