I’m from Latin America. Privacy International on your website collects several analysis of the privacy status of several countries, including Latin American countries, you could review them to remove the most important cases or sources to show your family. In general, Latin Americans do not trust our governments and the authorities, so it is easier if you convince them with cases that involve them, for example, this case in Colombia where the security agencies carried out illegal operations - without judicial orders - of espionage to several politicians, journalists, magistrates and more that they were opposed to the government of that time. There have also been several attempts to pass the “Ley Lleras”, which is equivalent to the SOPA law in Colombia. These cases are also easier to find news in Spanish that is more accessible to them by the language.
This will help you to raise awareness about privacy issues, but it will still be difficult to make them change when they are already used to the apps they use, the only way would be if the alternative provides more user-friendly tools than those they use.
For example, in terms of messaging the best alternative to Whastapp recommended here is Signal, but it still lacks much-used features by Latin Americans. For example, Whatsapp is used enough to transfer cell files to someone else’s computer - and if, this is not the safest thing because they tend to forget to log on that other computer- using the web session, Signal while you can do this with your desktop app, it is not as convenient as using it on the web. Here you could recommend using Localsend - it fails less than KdeConnect- to transfer files, and if it is to transfer links, you can recommend using the option to generate QR from the browser that I have not seen many people use, and scan it from the cell phone with the Secuso app. Although this change can be seen complex and unprofitable by the ease already offered by Whatsapp. Another problem is the problem of synchronization of messages between the Signal app with the desktop app, although recently they announced the possibility of transferring messages, but only for the last 45 days, I do not know the reason for that limit.
Other alternatives are not yet so intuitive or lack features to be recommended for beginners. It is also a need to use Whatsapp for several things as several services only offer contact by Whatsapp and I have never seen any using Signal. Ultimately you’d have to at least recommend tips to secure your Whatsapp account and don’t steal the account that it’s not a weird thing to happen here, many don’t know that Whatsapp has a two-step verification option through a pin, although Whatsapp will ask you to use that pin every time so you’d have to help them with a password manager so that they don’t forget. It would also be good to recommend them to avoid using their number on any site or person, although this is difficult with Whatsapp as it is necessary to add the contact, some time ago they announced that they would be working on the user names, but since then they have only added trash functions with the IA. And if they use SMS or Telegram, try to change them to Signal, or at least to Whatsapp that, despite their problems, is preferable to use SMS or Telegram that some still believe is “private".
