At least in the US geofencing warrants are a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geofence_warrant
It is prudent to protect oneself against that.
2. That advice sounds more reasonable if you assume a reasonable government that is only interested in tracking people who are torching cars. Governments have retaliated against political dissidents in the past who have committed no crimes.
For protests, the physical switch is an attempt to find a technical solution to a societal problem, which rarely works out. You may as well keep your (Android) phone in your pocket (but turned off, though that won't help with iOS' Find My network).
That might be true on planet Ogo, but not on planet Earth.
> "For protests, the physical switch is an attempt to find a technical solution to a societal problem, which rarely works out."
Another utterly absurd statement. Killswitches are, amongst other places and situations, useful on the battlefield (and therefore urban "battlefield", e. g. protests). And turning a practical solution to tactical and operational problems into a discussion about the inapplicability of such solutions to cure the "ills of society" at large is just... bizarre.
I wear a helmet and leather when I ride my motorcycle. Obviously, it'd be safer to never ride the motorcycle. But, I want to the ride the motorcycle, so, if I'm going to do it, it makes sense to mitigate my risk on it.
If people want to go to protests, they should, however a killswitch isn't good enough imo - you should leave your phone at home so the cops don't steal it from you, force you to unlock it with your fingerprint or faceID (a valid legal order in the USA), and then hunt through the contents to hit you with some bogus charge.
Governments and carriers retaining months of location history data is a risk. If the Russians invade and get a hold of that data, a lot of people suddenly become at risk, for no good reason other than it being around "just in case".
We've seen it happen here in the Netherlands when the nazis came in and happily browsed through the city archives, which contained a details count of how many people of what religion lived in each neighbourhood.
I have nothing to fear from the current government, but with the rise in ultraconservative, anti-intellectual, extreme right wing politicians across the globe, a lot of people may not want to be recorded having been to things that are perfectly safe today.
All of that said, as long as you don't have an iPhone, you can just turn your phone off. It'll power down the CPU. If you don't believe the manufacturer, then you'll have to measure the voltage on the PCB traces yourself, but so should you when you buy phones with a physical off switch.
First and foremost, it would be less noisy! What MC riders tend to conveniently forget is that they are putting the burden of having to deal with the noise they produce on everyone around them. Yes, your safety is also important (for you), but the noise you're producing is an issue for everyone around you.
Also, imo cars and their driver's dependence on them are a significantly greater cause of noise pollution than me and my stock pipe motorcycle, or even a harley. Hundreds of car tires rolling by on the road all day every day is so horrendously loud I can hear it from the 21st floor of my parent's apartment. When the 3 nearby red lights line up perfectly it's suddenly so quiet you can hear the cidadas on the mountain.
Not to mention the beeping, in the city I can hear a car beep from hundreds of meters away, echoing off the buildings. Or sometimes when I'm a pedestrian they'll dare to beep at me for the crime of walking in a way that inconveniences them, that's very very loud!
I take my motorcycle from my apartment straight into the basically unlived-on mountain roads, two weekends a month at most. I highly doubt I'm burdening anyone even a fraction what the average car driver does to tens of thousands of people every week.