Raspberry Pi hired an ex-cop and people are pissed
buzzfeednews.com
buzzfeednews.com
People are really complaining about this? This is incredibly cool from a maker perspective. And I bet he caught a load of very dodgy people with his kit too. This guy sounds awesome, what a splendid hire.
> "Folks I'm not exactly a police supporter but this is a terrible way to intro Tony. You've basically written this guy specialises in surveillance and now he works with our computers, yay!"
was not an acceptable response to that. Some people don't like surveillance, not that surprising, but if you end up with "oops, wrong audience for this" post you don't have to blow it up as they did.
Sophisticated IEDs and weaponized drones are incredibly cool from a maker perspective, too. That doesn't make celebrating them any less reprehensible.
I'm glad you come from a place of sufficient privilege to trust cops to keep you safe. Not all of us are so fortunate.
They're part of the teams taking down human trafficking rings, violent gangs involved in the drugs trade, terrorist cells, and suchlike. The kind of high impact police work that helps make vulnerable people's lives safer.
They're part of the teams surveilling and even outright harassing civilians on mere suspicion of tangential connection to crime - the kind of polie work that makes people's lives vulnerable in the first place.
It shouldn't be surprising that not everyone shares your enthusiasm for the state's goons, no matter how "cool" their goonery-enabling gadgets might be.
Whatever issue you have with the law enforcement people you apparently worked alongside for a while, please refrain from blindly transferring this onto UK police personnel whose work you have zero insight into.
The power dynamics involved are universal - and as has been linked elsewhere in this thread, the UK is no exception.
> please refrain from blindly transferring this onto UK police personnel
There's nothing "blind" about it - because again, the power dynamics are universal, and has has been linked elsewhere in this thread, the UK is no exception.
Cops are cops. They are definitionally given special privileges and powers over the general population, and the temptation to abuse those special privileges and powers doesn't magically go away just because you choose to plug your ears and pretend they have your best interests at heart. There's a reason why the phrase "All Cops Are Bastards" originated in the UK of all places.
I think it's essentially a disagreement about where the Overton window is. Raspberry Pi seems to think "harassing us because our new employee is an ex-cop is outside the Overton window" so they're dismissing/blocking people who are doing it. Whereas a lot of people in the Mastodon thread seem to think it's within the Overton window, so they're angry that Raspberry Pi isn't engaging with it seriously.
(Another aspect is that corporate social media accounts are held to a higher standard than randos.)
The reactions to the announcement have been so absurd and offensive (what you call 'criticism') that they could only respond the way they did or just try to ignore. IMHO taking the 'criticism' seriously would have been nothing more than feeding the trolls.
At the moment the Raspberry Pi's team must be scratching their heads in disbelief.
That's not true. You're generalising based on a minority of noisy idiots who should be ignored. Blocking them to increase the SNR is eminently sensible.
And again, this is at least as much about how they choose to respond by now than about the people who dislike the original post.
Again, there is nothing wrong with their new hire or the way he was introduced. As I already wrote, there is nothing wrong or underhand about surveillance in organised crime investigations. So from there it was abuse by a noisy minority. 'Abuse' is the appropriate word because it's effectively accusing that person and asking for his sacking.
Have a nice evening!
Edit: And yes, without those idiots (they are the problem) we would not be having this conversation, which would have been so much better but I think it's important to speak up in support of Raspberry Pi and their team.
Sorry, that's not abuse. If they'd not responded negatively and with blocks to stuff that milquetoast we'd probably not be having this conversation now.
That cuts both ways: the various members of the community who are victims of police surveillance (let alone other abuses) are under no obligation to take with a smile an overt manifestation of that abuse.
> As I already wrote, there is nothing wrong or underhand about surveillance in organised crime investigations.
What makes you so confident that the entirety of the new hire's surveillance work was against organized criminals?
I am very disappointed by HN members on this one... really unsavoury.
You didn't answer my question: why are you so confident that such surveillance was/is strictly confined to organized criminals?
> I am very disappointed by HN members on this one... really unsavoury.
The feeling is mutual. People playing defense for literal government surveillance and the officers perpetrating it does the name "Hacker News" a rather tragic disservice.
You've found and then blasted right past the point.
The controversy is largely coming from customers receiving abuse from the company.
Because a few people got angry, does that mean the entire customer base now has to endure abuse from the company and be happy about it?
In general, in today's society, it is considered wholly unacceptable for a company to dish abuse onto customers.
And yes, companies are expected to take abuse with a smile. Whether that's good or bad is a different discussion, but the expectation is that the company handle abuse gracefully. Ignoring it and not engaging at all is typically the safest way.
How would you react if one of Microsoft or Apple's pr drones came around to insult you personally? These companies receive orders of magnitude more abuse in a day than rpi would in a year, but their pr people don't act like this.
The Rpi team did something bad. They mistreated customers, then doubled down instead of acknowledging or apologizing. They're trying to spin it as some wild conspiracy instead of accepting that one pr person made a shitty call in handling angry customers.
A few angry neurodivergent-poly-queer types on Mastodon throwing ACAB tantrums does not constitute their entire customer base, or even a barely significant fraction of it.
The Raspberry Pi folks made the right call here. There's no point engaging seriously with these people, they'll just drain your energy with even more of their bullshit.
> I think what we’re looking at is a dogpile that’s being organized somewhere. There’s obviously a Discord or a forum somewhere. I don’t think this is organic […] I think there are people out there intent on perpetuating a culture war on Mastodon. And I’m not sure their motives are necessarily benign.
They really don’t understand how bad it looks to celebrate police surveillance? Of course there’s organic backlash to that. We must live in different worlds.
Actual title: "Raspberry Pi Hired An Ex-Cop And People Are Pissed"
https://eiara.nz/posts/2022/Dec/09/a-case-study-on-raspberry...
if so, I can see community fragmenting in million little areas soon.
The #FediBlock hashtag can be used by anyone - it's literally just a hashtag - and it's up to folks (mainly admins) monitoring that hashtag to investigate and (if it appears to be necessary) take action.
There are no global blocklists, and even the concept of shared blocklists isn't accepted by many, although there are quite a few Known Bad instances that a lot of admins block.
> as administrators and moderators seeking to ensure safety for their users are able to remove tens of thousands of their users in a few clicks
Is this author saying that the Raspberry Pi social media coordinator replying with things like "chill" and "bye bye" to rude commenters and then blocking is somehow harming them and threatening their safety? If so, the hyperbole here is off the charts!
How fragile these people must be. Snowstorm in a teacup.