This is one of those articles about activism that to me just reads as gatekeeping. The creator of the app clearly isn’t a bastion of knowledge about this stuff but he’s taking on incredible personal risk to try and do something. While it might just be theater, I don’t disagree about that, theater is still great at getting the word out and building a movement.
Progressive politics has a natural 'kitchen sink' risk.
A group proposes to build simple, affordable housing and funds it. Then another group comes along and says that people with affordable housing deserve energy-efficient, low-cost-to-run homes, so the plans get upgraded with better windows and walls, and the cost doubles. Then another group comes along and says that affordable housing should be green with solar panels and battery power. And another group says that all affordable housing should be fully accessible, so the size of all doorways is upgraded. And another group says that affordable housing should be ecologically beneficial, so now the housing requires a green roof and rainwater collection. And so on, until the cost is 5x the original cost and the project never gets built, and a bunch of time is wasted.
This is the risk. Each group along the way had noble motives, but by trying to solve every problem at once, nothing gets done and no one gets helped. By contrast, politics that are instead centered on tearing down systems and rules don't have this, because any random action is a step towards the goal.
I feel like this is happening here to a degree. Instead of producing a functional alternative, this well-intentioned person is picking apart all the problems with the current approach. They may be 100% "correct" in their assessments, but politically, they are letting the air out of their own balloon.
I would argue that they just don't have the ability to say no to each other. If you say no, you're immediately judged and "other'd" by your own allies. It's not a healthy ecosystem of thought.
There's also the groups that, as can be seen in the realm of California housing, will use any and all kitchen sink tactics to intentionally delay change while acting 'progressive', even if what they're actually fighting for is exactly the opposite of what it was yesterday.
Author clearly points to a (more) functional alternative—their local group with volunteers verifying all the reports (with 90%+ false positive rates, even before malicious interference, which is strong evidence that this app is probably worse than useless for anyone taking it seriously; after all, the potential number of real reports is bounded by rare events, while the potential number of malicious fake reports is effectively unbounded).
Author and others also offered to help through collaboration with existing groups or through open source audits and code contributions, both of which were promptly refused.
Sure, author didn’t offer a functional alternative in the form of a P2P free-for-all app. Probably because that’s a not viable strategy if you actually want to help.
Sure, but there's also a minimum quality required before the product is safe to use.
If I make gas masks, they can be useful even if they aren't resistant to every single chemical out there. But if they are really bad, they may encourage users to take risks without providing adequate protection.
From what I've seen, taking action against ICE can be a risky activity and many people will want to protect their privacy while doing it. This app promises to protect privacy. However, if the Joshua (author of the app) fails to protect privacy (e.g. hosts on an insecure server that someone from ICE can get into, or becomes subject to a warrant with gag order) the app may do harm.
I'm not saying the app is harmful right now, but there are definitely signs that it could become that. If Micah spots issues in that area, and the Joshua fails to respond to criticism, I think it's completely right for Micah to publish their concerns.
Obviously in a polite, constructive way and while specifically pointing out that they believe the app author means no harm. The way I read Micah's article it seems fine.
Why is being clueless, refusing help, and taking risks admirable... It's theater that a lot of people think is real, potentially endangering them if they rely on the app.
The app makes specific promises ("the app ensures user privacy by storing no personal data, making it impossible to trace reports back to individual users") while the Hope talk shows that the writer of the app is not familiar with very common techniques that are required to keep these promises. Warranty canaries, reverse engineering, and security though obscurity are all concepts that anyone making legally sensitive secure software should be familiar with.
To make an analogy, if someone wants to start a taxi service and you say they're not qualified because they don't know about different types of tires and how to change the front lights, that would be gatekeeping. If they don't know you should sometimes change tires and turn the lights on when it's dark you should have doubts about their ability to safely run a taxi service.
You could argue that he doesn't need open source and a warranty canary, but from what Micah says, it sounds like the app author doesn't have the required knowledge to evaluate the option.
Playing on the rail tracks also incurs incredible personal risk -- doesn't make it wise. Seems fair to me for the author to give their opinion that they don't believe this to be an effective form of protest. Especially given that they list their specific concerns.
It's not every day someone sacrifices their own time and resources to provide material assistance to people breaking the law. Are we looking forward to a future where apps appear for other sorts of illegal activity like drug dealing, human trafficking, prostitution, gang wars?
Just think of all the societal progress we are potentially missing out on if only more people would think of those who flaunt the laws that a nation has democratically decided upon.
