1y ago

Switching to more privacy friendly alternatives

How have others gotten friends/family to make the switch? I’ve been doing a cleanup of my digital life over the last year or so and am trying to move to using more privacy friendly alternatives where possible.

example: I’d love to switch to Signal only but everyone I know only uses WhatsApp. I’ve mentioned switching to people in the past but it’s always the same response (I don’t have anything to hide)

69 comments

The unfortunate fact is that most people don’t care about their privacy until it’s violated. It’s weird.
- I’ve seen people complain about companies like Meta and Google but then not make any effort to try and change…people can be weird sometimes.
  I suppose there are a lot of factors at play, but still 🤷🏻‍♂️
  
  There's a balance between principles and practicality and for a lot of people it just hasn't tipped yet. I'm kind of in that boat myself.
  On principle, I'd like to eliminate Google from my life entirely.
  In practice, there is no good alternative to Google Maps. I've tried a bunch of OSM-based apps and they're just not there yet. So I use Google Maps. Not happy about it, but I still use it.
  
  deleted
- @hperrin @governorkeagan Until they realise how much and for how long it's been violated.

Of all the privacy-related changes I've made, Signal is the only thing I've managed to get anyone else to use.
It was a matter of saying "I don't use WhatsApp anymore" and that was that. Some friends didn't make the switch, but they know where to find me.
Quitting Facebook lead people to believe that I was in need of help, though. They thought I was crazy. Still, today, people ask me why they can't tag me on FB or why I unfriended them. When I tell them I stopped using FB they're shocked and say things like, "but you're such a techy computer nerd guy."
Quitting Google was confusing for others too.
- "but you're such a techy computer nerd guy."
  that's the reason why
  
  if only they knew how not-so-techy I really am...
- you're a techy nerd and thats why you definitely use 1984book and give your soul to the zucc :D

Start sending invites to Signal. Setting up group chats can help too, as invitations to those create mild FOMO in the mind of the invitee, then once they have the app they can use it for things besides group chats.
- I’ll give that a try!

I have a few friends and family on Signal. Pretty much everyone uses other services too (including myself) but Signal is installed on a few
I talk to some friends / family on Signal exclusively. They either already cared about it, or they're close enough that they trust my recommendation / still don't care but want to put in the effort
I talk to some friends / family on Signal only when we want to have a more private conversation
Some people won't ever be convinced, I talk to them on other services or in person when privacy is important. I set up boundaries to protect myself, and people usually respect that.
This way I protect myself while respecting other people's choices.
For you I'd recommend focussing on the second option. When you need to talk privately, ask the person to install it and give a short explanation for why it's better. If they do, then great it's installed and it'll get used once in a while. Maybe they will see other people and build up the network. If they don't install it, then suggest an alternative like talking in person
- I tell everyone that messenger is not installed on my phone and I check messages once a week. So if they contact me there, expect a one week response time. (Or more.)

I don’t have anything to hide
Great! Then I guess they don't mind giving you their bank password, credit card pin, details of all the medicines they take, information from the work they do, their detailed weekly activity schedule, their browser history, their investment portfolio and assets, etc, etc... I'm salivating at the thought of the hundreds of different ways in which I can make money with all that info!
- Sacrificing privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you're ok giving up free speech because you have nothing to say
  
  Not even gonna name the source where you got that from? :P
- Funny thing is that a lot of people actually do give pins and shit. I know more than a few people that straight up gave me their card and the pin number to buy shit when I was a kid.
  Besides, giving embarrassing information to a faceless billion dollar company does not feel as bad as giving it to someone who judges you if they find that info embarrassing. It's illogical but that's how a lot of people think.

It's worse for me in my country, 90% of people use Viber. Which not only has the same lack of privacy with other popular messengers, it's also ugly, filled with ads and company bots, and it's obviously targeted to teenagers. It's so weird to me that people use this app, but I guess most people's choice is always "whatever my most contacts use". I've been trying to introduce my friends to something better, I would prefer Signal but literally zero of my contacts use it. On Telegram on the other hand, I found 4-5 of my contacts already using it so I started from there, added my family too, and I'm slowly trying to add more friends. Until then, like others said, I'll use whatever for a casual message, and I'll just call the person for anything more personal or private.
- Yeah that's what sucks about this. But you don't have to really call for intimate messages. WhatsApp cannot read you message since it's E2EE but they do store and use the metadata. So a casual message and an intimate messages are the same in a WhatsApp server's eyes.
- Viber is really very annoying, constantly nagging me about their "newest stickers" and other crap. When I open it, it's like times square on my phone with all the garbage ads...

I got no one to switch. Eventually I just gave up as people were getting sick of me always recommending alternatives no one else uses.

"I don't have anything to hide"
I prefer to suggest a different mindset - "It's not that I have nothing to hide. It's that I have nothing I want anybody to see"
- It still incredibly hard tog et even one person to agree tho. And even then they'd likely give up since most of our contacts are going to keep using WA
  
  Definitely. Now I just occasionally mention that I have and use more privacy friendly alternatives as a sort of "fyi" for them to know. It's better for the other parties to want to switch out of their own desires than to be forced. If it is forced upon them and things don't go smoothly, you'll end up getting resentment or worse, blamed. Better to use subtle encouragement and if they decide to switch, offer lots of useful advice and assistance.

You're not going to convince anyone to suffer inconvenience for something that has no tangible benefit in their eyes. The best you can do is give people the option to contact you on Signal and explain (briefly) why you prefer it. After enough experience, you realize there is no argument you can make that will convince people to care about privacy. The people who join you on Signal either already care about privacy (but maybe didn't realize it) or value your comfort over theirs.
Personally, I would rather send unencrypted SMS instead of using a Meta-owned service. I don't want to be part of the network effect keeping people on Facebook. Everyone with a SIM card in their phone already has access to SMS, but few use it if they can help it, so I don't think I'm contributing to a network effect by doing this. The only MMS client I use is Signal, so anyone can contact me over there if they want more functionality. That's the only tactic I use, and so far, it has been unsuccessful.

Either they're okay with a switch and it's easy or they are not open for that and it's impossible to change their mind.
Pretty much nobody I know wants to switch to Signal or any other messaging app. So it's SMS communication with them because I definitely won't install WhatsApp.

It's a slow change, honestly. Just do what you can with your own services.
- It’s unfortunate but at least it’s moving.

Signal is not much better than WhatsApp or any other walled garden messenger without provider choice. Don't waste your time and energy to move people to walled gardens. A better idea would be to use providers and apps that support the federated internet standard XMPP: https://joinjabber.org
- deleted
  
  Which encryption protocol is labeled with a warning? The link I posted makes choosing a client very easy.

Why everybody is talking about signal? Isnt a matrix also a good alternative? It requires no phone number + has almost the same feature set. For chatting with family and friend it scales enough good. It is fully open source.
- personally, signal is a lot easier to set up for a family member who doesnt care about privacy. its just a sms replacement basically, just need a phone number (which is also a downside, of course)
  
  In Matrix all u need is username, email and password and ur ready to go. Homeserver is configured automatically to matrix.org (which is a problem, but nvm)
  The downside of matrix is complexity of choosing a client though. And in general understanding a concept of matrix is not easy for regilar person.
  For example u can say: "Im on Signal", but u cant say: "im on FluffyChat", or Element whatever, it sounds wrong, cuz these are only the clients and everything is working on matrix. But the regular person needs an object: telegram, signal, whatsapp - these all are just single entities. On the other hand u have matrix with clients, homeservers, spaces and all of this complexity, and that is not easy to understand.
  Yeah, i hope in future this problem will be resolved.
- I’ve started using Matrix instead of Discord (not that I really ever used Discord).
  
  Why are so many people comparing discord with matrix instead of revolt

Just start using Signal. Don't push it for a reason for people who don't care, just let people know "Hey, message me here". The more people that use it - the better for everyone - whether they benefit or not.
The second part of that is use things like WhatsApp less or not at all, but you can always start with the first part. Maybe you already have folks on signal, and you can just start messaging them there until more folks come over.

I have gotten tech minded friends to switch with some success. Getting my wife to switch to privacy friendly communications with me was easy in that I did all of the leg work. I setup her accounts and installed the apps. As far as she was concerned the phone came with XMPP, Matrix and Tuta.

The only reason I got Signal to catch on with friends & family was that it made group chats between Android and iPhone just work for everybody. Although if they had already been using Whatsapp it may have been a harder sell. But Signal was easy to use to figure out.

69 comments