I have friends who care about privacy but they need phones that can do Uber and washing machine apps. So I’m the only one i know with a private FOSS phone.

You could start invading their privacy if convincing them with words doesn’t work.

Why bother shutting the bathroom door? You’re not doing anything wrong.

Post family drama on Facebook, whats the problem with that? Everyone has drama?

Really there is a deeper conversation about power and manipulation through marketing/propaganda. But thats an ever harder topic.

The thing is, people by and large don’t want to be convinced. They want their convenience and ease of use, they don’t want to learn a whole new paradigm, least of all one that requires constant vigilance and understanding of the risks. I can’t blame them, they have a lot on their mind, and their existing skill set might not be relevant to privacy issues. People in general resist change and effort. I do. You do too.

It’s less about you, and more about them. People will only start taking steps when it all clicks for them. What the catalyst will be is impossible to tell, since people are wired differently. All we can do is talk about privacy and advocate for it with people who are willing to have the discussions. Don’t expect to go in and change people’s minds. It’s horribly difficult and you will be disappointed. Instead, think of it as giving people perspectives and starting points for their own journeys. If something happens and they are finally willing to start doing the work, they will at least have some context and words, labels to use. They may even come to you for more. They may not.

“You don’t care about privacy? Why not give me your bank login, then”

More seriously, You don’t have to convince people of anything. Sooner than later some huge leak will happen or anythign more intimate that will still impact them, say, like the story of this dad sending a pic of some intimate part of their sick kid’s to their doctor and being flagged by Google AI and being arrested for sharing child porn. And then they will realize why it mattered to protect our privacy.

I just compare it to having a stalker. Imagine being in your bedroom and having someone looking at you from outside the window. Now, would you be ok with it if the person was invisible?

One thing I love about Germany is that people have this understanding where privacy is fundamental and not something to argue about. Because they know being able to easily identify people leads to disaster. It’s just about a political swing away.

If you’re in the US, you could point to the news. Even garden variety libs should be a little nervous about the increasing police state

Start by your own privacy.

I boarded that train about twenty years ago. I tried the evangelizing route. I failed miserably. Which led me to care for myself first and foremost.

I started by abandoning Windows. Not of my own volition; I bought a computer that had no OS. Enter Linux. None of my family, friends or acquaintances understood. It was all about the convinience. When my machines started outperforming while outliving theirs, it caused a ripple.

Then came the usual slew of questions: where can I get a free anti-virus, office, media reader, whatever? That was when I introduced FOSS. After the initial resistance, things just settled into place. LibreOffice works. VLC works. PeaZip works. Thunderbird works. Etc.

When smartphones became a thing, I started moving as fast as I could towards FOSS. This made things a bit more laughable as “free” android applications are ubiquous. But they fill your phone with junk and ads. While my apps provided me ease of use, safety, security and privacy.

But when push came to shove, I just refused to join. First I left FBMessenger. I never boarded Whatsapp. I never entered Instagram or any major social networks. I discovered Signal and remained there.

It’s my way or no way.

I typically point to the real world and that seems to work:

• Your garden has a fence
• Your windows have curtains so that you close when you switch on the lights inside
• Your bathroom window uses frosted glass so that you cannot be seen showering from outside
• You sometimes whisper so that not everyone can hear what you say

None of them are super safe, but you still follow these precautions. All we ask is to be as careful on the internet.

You can lead a horse to water but you can not make it drink.

People never want to be convinced of anything that says they should do something differently than how they currently do it. Best you can do is lead by example. Talk about benefits of your way of doing things if they ask, or if it is very relevant to the conversation. Otherwise, don’t broach those topics. To take it a step further, if people start complaining to you about problems, before you offer solutions, ask them if they are just venting, or if they are looking for advice or suggestions. Now that you have your instructions on how to change what you are doing, please follow them to the letter, without deviation ;P

Stalk their social media accounts to prove a point.

pull up embarasing posts from years ago to prove a point

Most people are all like: “derp derp! Nothing to hide nothing to fear duuuuur 🤤”. There’s no reasoning with them. Don’t beat yourself up over it.

Honestly, there are a lot of people whom I met believe that google can track/store all their information since they believe that they are too insignificant for that data to matter. Hard to change that mindset in the first place.

What i tend to do is just complain about how much resources trackers/spyware take up on my Phone/Computers, which tends to convience people better than just doing a “but mah privacy”. More people are united about a less laggier computer/phone after all lol.