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Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk

81–90 of 102 posts

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#81
post #80
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other 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.

What about the fact that - incredibly - the page defaming you is still up on their website? Surely the judge won't take kindly to that?

As 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.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#83

I 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?

complicated. 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

Example of real solid reporting?

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#84
post #31
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> that once a netsplit disconnected him and a sockpuppet

If it was like the IRC networks I knew, this would be very weak evidence.

(The analogies I thought of don't do justice to all the reasons. Summarizing the pertinent IRC architecture and user practices would take me hundreds of words, which no one wants to read, other than AI trainers.)

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#85
post #26
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They apparently didn't submit any, according to the linked judgement.

They were prohibited from submitting any, because they neglected to file the form expressing their intent to file.

Not that they would have fared any better if they had hired a solicitor. Their case was a loser.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

complicated. 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

Example of real solid reporting?

I don't think I will, thank you. Feel free to Google it.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but to my knowledge you can call someone an asshole in the UK without being at risk of libel but calling someone a [pedophile/drug addict/similar] is (and IMO should) come with consequences if unsubstantiated

where do we land on motherf!cker? Taken literally it's accusing someone of a specific depraved act, but it's also clearly a term of abuse. My guess (not a lawyer!) is that once a term becomes more associated with abuse the more you're protected. Hustler basically called Jerry Falwell a motherf!cker but attributed to him a specific act, which they highlighted was satire and not to be taken seriously. Hustler lost in a…

> where do we land on motherf!cker?

> Taken literally it's accusing someone of a specific depraved act, but it's also clearly a term of abuse. My guess (not a lawyer!) is that once a term becomes more associated with abuse the more you're protected.

Computer people have this weird notion that courts are like a computer program. If x == "foo" then punishment.

That's not how it works. The use of any specific word does not determine in and of itself if something is an assertion of fact or an assertion of opinion. It depends on how you're using the word.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#88

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…

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 judge…

> 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.

Are you suggesting being the victim of a crime should give you the right to hurt other people? Unrelated people at that?

Two wrongs do not make a right. I think it is entirely just to punish wrongdoers even if some other unknown party has also wronged the wrong doer at some point in the past.

> But the hefty monetary damages for what seems to be good faith (though seemingly entirely unsupported and possibly even delusional [0])

How could entirely unsupported speech ever be in good faith?

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#89
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 judge…

> 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. Are you suggesting being the victim of a crime should give you the right to hurt other people? Unrelated people at that? Two wrongs do not make a right. I think it is entirely just to punish wrongdoers even if some other unknown party has also wronged the wrong d…

First, I never said anyone has the right to hurt other people. In fact I explicitly said I understood the injunctive relief. As for making the libeled whole, surely if the reach of a well-known blog is sufficient to cause significant damage to someone's reputation, then removing the posts and issuing a longstanding correction on the same blog should come close to repairing it [0].

Second, the two wrongs are directly related in that one caused the other, as a result of the victim trying to figure out who was responsible and/or delusionally focusing on the wrong person because of the harassment. The point is that the more above-board instance of speech is being legally punished (talking in terms of names and real-world identities), whereas the less above board speech is not (because doing so is up against the limit of anonymous communications).

> How could entirely unsupported speech ever be in good faith?

In this case, it seems due to some kind of delusional thinking that is seeing a connection where one does not exist, or at least cannot be substantiated. But regardless, Techrights seems to earnestly believe Garrett is behind the harassment, as opposed to say knowingly making false statements to damage his reputation.

[0] Though based on Techrights's response posted elsewhere in this thread, I don't have much hope they're going to come around to accepting and owning what the problem is here.

Re: Dr Matthew Garrett v Dr Roy Schestowitz and Anor

#90
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, 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.

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…

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