on its website announcing it had hired an ex–police officer, Toby Roberts, as its maker-in-residence.
“You’re basically telling me and people like me who do privacy work and activist work that you’re anti-that,” Bowser said. “You’re alienating a large chunk of your customers by going pro-cop. The company clearly doesn’t know how their products are being used in the world. A lot of people who use it are anti-authoritarian, anti-surveillance, and don’t like police brutality. And they’re actively building tools using the Raspberry Pi and others against those things.
Wikipedia consultant Pete Forsyth, who is from Oregon, also had strong words for Raspberry Pi. “I think this event will mark a turning point in the organization's reputation,” he wrote via Twitter DM. “It's hard to see how they can recover the trust they seem to have almost willfully dismantled today.”
“I think what we’re looking at is a dogpile that’s being organized somewhere,” Upton said. “There’s obviously a Discord or a forum somewhere.” She did not provide evidence to support that claim. “I don’t think this is organic, but it’s very unpleasant, and extraordinarily unpleasant for the people involved,” she said. Upton claimed both Roberts and Raspberry Pi’s social media manager have been doxxed and received death threats.
In part, Woodward’s confusion over the outrage is because of the lack of impact that Roberts is likely to have on the way that Pis are used. “It’s not as if he is going to corrupt any of the Pis — like all technology, it has some uses some people will object to,” he said. Rather, Woodward believes “the loudest objectors are taking it a bit far. Maybe they could look at it as a glass-half-full situation: Think of the unusual innovations he might bring.
Is this the kind of behaviour samknows endorses of its employees varjmes? I doubt it...