Valid ways to protest

Some people get angry if you protest the state of the world too aggressively. I would, for instance, almost never accept violence as a valid way to protest. Except in self-defence. But... how do you define self-defence? And what about major non-violent disruptions, say, causing an airport to temporarily shut down? How about walking in the streets with signs and making your voice heard, thereby disrupting people's casual shopping? What about de-platforming? What about calling "the other side" hateful things?

I think it all depends on the issue, and how important and time-sensitive it is. But I would encourage anyone to actually use their time, effort, and money to try to better the world. It has to be a real investment, so not simply over the internet. It's hard to define a universal scale to measure how important an issue is, so I guess we need some kind of common sense there, whatever that means.