Behind the £70,000 figure is a story of sockpuppets, absent evidence, and a failed counterclaim.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. Somebody has successfully sued Roy and Rianne Schestowitz for libel. They’re the folks behind the Brit-based and open-tech-focused websites Techrights and Tux Machines. Although there’s not much known about the couple’s finances, the £70,000 judgment (about $90,000 US) is more than a mere slap on the hand for most of us mortals.
This appears to be the first time anyone had ever bothered to file papers and take the Techrights folks to court, even though others have threatened and sent what we in the States call “lawyer letters.”
In this case, the claimant was Matthew Garrett, the well-known — some might even say famous — open source advocate and developer who has at one time or another been a Linux kernel developer, Free Software Foundation board member, Secure Boot advocate (he actually led efforts to make UEFI Secure Boot workable for Linux distributions), and more.
Garrett claims that since 2023, the Schestowitzs have used their websites, Techrights and Tux Machines, to publish derogatory and unsubstantiated claims, which among other things, say that he’s behind anonymous “sockpuppet” IRC accounts — that is, accounts using fake names — that carried out a vicious trolling and harassment campaign against them.
The Schestowitz’s Claims Against Garrett
In reality, the Schestowitz’s actions appear to be an off-target attempt to handle a real grievance: a campaign of online harassment directed at the couple that started around 2023, and which involved extremely offensive and threatening IRC content. The Schestowitzs became convinced that Garrett was behind the campaign, and published an escalating series of posts, a “wiki” page, and cross‑linked articles identifying him as the perpetrator and attributing the abusive content and alleged crimes to him personally.
They’ve claimed that through the “sockpuppet” account he has made posts against them that included racist, antisemitic, misogynistic, homophobic, and paedophilic content, along with threats of violence or death. In addition, they accused him of criminal activities, including cybercrime, hate crime, blackmail, and issuing death threats — and of being a user of crack cocaine.
Garrett attended the trial in person and gave evidence as a witness, represented by counsel.
Previous Accusations and Pre-Trial Proceedings
This isn’t the first time that Schestowitz has been accused of making accusations without proof. Perhaps the best documented incident was in 2015, when World IP Review, Techdirt, and FOSS Patents all ran articles describing European Patent Office lawyers sending him a legal letter that alleged some posts were “defamatory” and demanded their takedown, along with threats of further action that ultimately never materialized.
Here, court records show that the suit was filed by Garrett in April 2024, and the Schestowitzs filed and served a defense, as well as a counterclaim for harassment, that September.
At a pre-trial review that the Schestowitzs didn’t attend, Justice Collins Rice recorded a PTR order that barred them from calling any witnesses at trial because they had not served witness statements. The justice reported in her final ruling on the case, that the order was issued with the caveat that “application for relief from sanctions will be considered … in the event that such an application is made.”
Early in the ruling, the justice observed:
“Dr Schestowitz confirmed to me at the opening of the trial on 30th October 2025, at which he and Mrs Schestowitz were informally supported by a defamation solicitor, that in any event no further order was sought on that (unsealed) application and no further application was being made. He told me that he and Mrs Schestowitz had taken a deliberate decision not to submit any evidence or call any witnesses, on financial grounds. He confirmed that he understood that meant that, while he and Mrs Schestowitz would be able to put Dr Garrett to proof of his claims, to cross-examine the claimant witnesses (Dr Garrett and his solicitor), and to make submissions to me, they would not be able by these means to introduce evidence in support of their defence and counterclaim.”
The Court’s Ruling
The court accepted that the Schestowitzs had genuinely been subjected to horrific online abuse, but found they had no reliable evidence that Garrett was responsible for the abusive messages or for any of the alleged criminal behavior. Their defense of truth, honest opinion, and public interest failed on that basis.
As the justice put it, their online campaign against him was “unsubstantiated character assassination,” and not the investigative reporting the defendants claimed.
In addition to the £70,000 award, the justice issued an injunction preventing further publication of the defamatory content and requiring them to publish a summary of the judgment on their websites. Their counterclaim for harassment was dismissed.
That being said, for a while at least, the case might be in limbo. In an email exchange with FOSS Force, Roy Schestowitz told us that he’s already applied for permission to appeal. We understand that in the UK, such requests are not often granted.
Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux
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