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Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk

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Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#31

Post by Macha »

nailer wrote: post #16
jeroenhd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According 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…

What was TR/TM’s evidence that it was MG that was harassing them?

From the complaint, the claim seems to be that he used to use different names on IRC 10 years ago, which they claimed showed he used suckpuppets regularly, that once a netsplit disconnected him and a sockpuppet, and that a harasser had a similar writing style. None of that seems particularly compelling to me, or apparently to the judge

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#32

Post by mindslight »

benjojo12 wrote: post #15
kasabali wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> £70,000 in "damages" Damn, libel law is ridiculous.

Is it though? If someone posts a huge amount of articles about how you are various non-good things, then a employer might do a simple Google of your name on and think "Oh, actually, I don't think I want to hire that guy" that's worth quite a lot of money if that's a job that you actually wanted to get (and that results in a loss of income/opportunities) Typically speaking, you should probably only be saying things on…

The problem is that viewing this as justice relies on an assumption that the legal system fully resolves, as if everyone who is wronged can be made whole. For example in this case - there is some third unknown party carrying out the harassment, against which Techrights would have a much higher bar to bring their own suit and recover their own damages (assuming discovery even went anywhere, and the person wasn't judgement proof). So Techrights is basically left "holding the bag" at the discontinuity between anonymous anarchistic free speech and trying to bring it into the realm of trustable statements by known identities and institutions.

Merely adjudicating truthfulness with injunctive relief might be understandable in this day and age of persistent shameless lying. But the hefty monetary damages for what seems to be good faith (though seemingly entirely unsupported and possibly even delusional [0]) speech is a tough pill to swallow.

[0] I took a quick scan through Techrights's wiki page "documenting" all this and the only thing substantiating the connection I could find was Garrett and the IRC harasser ping-timing-out at the same time. But there are many different ways that could happen. Yet every screenshot is captioned as if it was definitely Garrett saying those things.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#33

Post by [deleted] »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #25
nairboon wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between your examples? Both sentences could be an opinion or a fact.

"This guys is an asshole" is pretty clearly a subjective opinion I hold about a person, one that others might disagree with. "That diver is a pedophile" is pretty clearly a factual statement, implying that the person abuses kids, or has been convicted of such. (I know that, uh, the original statement was basically just an insult, but: it does posit a fact.)

[deleted]

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#34

Post by jeroenhd »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #19
benjojo12 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it though? If someone posts a huge amount of articles about how you are various non-good things, then a employer might do a simple Google of your name on and think "Oh, actually, I don't think I want to hire that guy" that's worth quite a lot of money if that's a job that you actually wanted to get (and that results in a loss of income/opportunities) Typically speaking, you should probably only be saying things on…

It also matters - or at least, should - whether you're expressing your opinion ("this guy is a fucking asshole"), vs. a claim of fact ("that diver is a pedophile"). I would not particularly want to express myself in a world where calling someone an asshole has a non-trivial chance of costing me £70k plus court fees.

The judge takes all of that into account when determining damages. The fee is based on an earlier lawsuit, with inflation added:

> Mr Hamer asks for a single global sum to vindicate Dr Garrett’s reputation and compensate him for distress in relation to all the publications complained of. He proposed a range of comparator decisions for my consideration, in support of a submission that libel damages approaching £100,000 would be appropriate. I have considered these. I noted in particular the case of Fentiman v Marsh [2019] EWHC 2099 in which an award of £55,000 was made in respect of allegations in a blog read by about 500 people that the claimant, a company CEO, was a hacker responsible for illegal cyber-attacks on a company. The tone of the allegations there were something comparable to those in the present case – somewhat personally and floridly put. I hold the effects of inflation in mind.

> 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.

The fact techrights is a somewhat popular and respected publication on free software (at least by some circles) probably cost them.

This isn't just about someone calling someone else an asshole, this is about a long and continuous series of accusations and (now legally confirmed) libel, neatly documented and organised on a dedicated hate page: https://techrights.org/wiki/Matthew_J_Garrett/ Looking at the dates on those links, they were especially active during August of 2023, accusing him of everything from misogyny and racism to committing hate crimes.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#35

Post by bawolff »

That 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.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#37

Post by bawolff »

kasabali wrote: post #11
mythz wrote: post #2

Basically 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,…

> £70,000 in "damages" Damn, libel law is ridiculous.

After reading the judgement, its honestly kind of low.

They basically refused to submit any evidence at all in their defense, and then were racist to the opposing side's lawyer.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#38

Post by jkaplowitz »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #19
benjojo12 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it though? If someone posts a huge amount of articles about how you are various non-good things, then a employer might do a simple Google of your name on and think "Oh, actually, I don't think I want to hire that guy" that's worth quite a lot of money if that's a job that you actually wanted to get (and that results in a loss of income/opportunities) Typically speaking, you should probably only be saying things on…

It also matters - or at least, should - whether you're expressing your opinion ("this guy is a fucking asshole"), vs. a claim of fact ("that diver is a pedophile"). I would not particularly want to express myself in a world where calling someone an asshole has a non-trivial chance of costing me £70k plus court fees.

The statements motivating this lawsuit included a lot more than just calling him an asshole. They called him a habitual cocaine user and accused him of orchestrating a harassment campaign. Those are claims of fact, and false accusations of that kind widely read in the victim’s professional and academic communities could certainly cause more than £70k plus court fees in eventual damages through reduced lifetime earnings.

Disclaimer: Being a (currently quite inactive) member of the Debian project myself, I’ve met Matthew Garrett in the past on a relatively small number of occasions, but I have no inside information on the allegations mentioned in this court judgment and have not discussed them with him or with anyone else involved. I do, however, believe his side of the story based on what context I have about him.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#39

Post by Aurornis »

nairboon wrote: post #22
pavel_lishin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also matters - or at least, should - whether you're expressing your opinion ("this guy is a fucking asshole"), vs. a claim of fact ("that diver is a pedophile"). I would not particularly want to express myself in a world where calling someone an asshole has a non-trivial chance of costing me £70k plus court fees.

What's the difference between your examples? Both sentences could be an opinion or a fact.

> Both sentences could be an opinion or a fact.

The judgments in these cases take all of the context into consideration.

In general, though, accusing someone of pedophilia is substantially more serious than calling them an asshole. The former has objective meaning and can be associated with crimes against minor victims. The latter just means you don’t like someone.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#40

Post by jeroenhd »

benjojo12 wrote: post #18
jeroenhd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According 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…

> but ended up not being convincing enough not to cost them 70k pounds It might end up being more than 70k£ for them, given MG's legal fees may not be included in that price (I can't see any indication either way)

I don't believe it will, at least he doesn't seem to think so: https://nondeterministic.computer/@mjg59/115582067345182203
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