Pardon my ignorance, but I don't really see where the problem is? Is he spying on competitors for them? Is he doing something unethical for the Raspi foundation? Im a little lost on why this is important.
But the optics aren't great.
And the response to the criticism reads like Pi's social media person is trying to take them down from the inside.
Being that toxic to fans and customers on social media is - I'll put this bluntly - stupid. It's unprofessional and very, very off-putting.
Maybe a better play would be to let the responses roll, then do a blog post discussing the use of technology in law enforcement. They let the haters get under their skin and provoke an aggressive response... take the bait and you lose.
"ACAB" is not a criticism tho and that's all I see
There's a lot more anti-cop folks on mastodon, so coming out right away with "We hired a policeman & it's going great" is probably not the best icebreaker. It's already gonna set folks on edge.
Then the quote is about hiding covert video and audio surveillance, which is also something that's not gonna be well received by the audience on mastodon.
They then doubled down in their responses to folks concerned with the toot. They started making edgy responses which simply shouldn't be how brands engage folks on mastodon. It's a different audience than twitter. Telling well-respected folks to unfollow and "chill" is unnecessarily combative, especially by saying condescending stuff like "bye bye now" and calling followers childish.
If they would have framed it as hiring a former security officer and then detailing what he's doing with the Pi, they would have been fine. But they framed it in just about the worst way possible, then doubled down with troll-y replies.
I respect Raspberry Pi for standing by their employee, and the need for technical skills in law enforcement.