you should probably use a VPN if you’re uploading because it’s trivial for law enforcement to track - there’s no Onion routing or anything like that, and anyone can register and search
but for downloading / leeching I wouldn’t be as worried because very generally speaking people aren’t harassed for downloading, only sharing
I work with Zendesk and this doesn’t surprise me at all - the product is janky and they’re much more interested in sales and squeezing a few more $$s from their clients than improving it or fixing issues