Also, maybe activism theater isn't so bad. I mean not everyone has the temperament or motivation that the severe activists do, and maybe just "doing something" (as long as it's harmless) raises general awareness and critical mass and eventually creates more activism.

It's a nice theory, but that hasn't been borne out in reality. Activision theater allows people to convince themselves that they don't need to do the actual work to protect their communities or disassemble abhorrent systems. It raises the profile of the app developer at the expense of the community.

Security practices aside, ICEBlock is worse than activism theater; it allows bad actors to intimidate communities with false reports, as it lacks any methods to validate reports and verify users, and was developed without collaboration with the communities it was intended to serve.

I disagree. It's akin to security theatre. People who engage in it can think they've done the right things, when in reality, they might have created more vulnerabilities or now have a false sense of security.

Finding effective, actionable and safe methods is difficult - but that's the work we have to do.

I'd argue making promises of privacy and security that one cannot keep, in enabling civic resistance to unaccountable paramilitary forces, is not harmless.