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)
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…
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 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.
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
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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
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I talk to some friends / family on Signal only when we want to have a more private conversation
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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
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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 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.
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
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Which encryption protocol is labeled with a warning? The link I posted makes choosing a client very easy.
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Yes, the XSF has a very high bar what a standard is and what not, so the many protocol extensions are labeled experimental. However that doesn’t mean implementations are “incomplete” or “insecure”. OMEMO has good support nowadays and the implementation in Conversations has been independently audited.
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How regularly should I check if Signal has become an interoperable internet standard?
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“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.
It’s a slow change, honestly. Just do what you can with your own services.
It’s unfortunate but at least it’s moving.
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.