It honestly black pills me. Its literally free and functions perfectly, but people won’t take 30 seconds to download it to not get spied on.
Frustrating how little the average person cares if they refuse to just download a free app that works as well as WhatsApp.
I have a small group of internet friends who jumped from Friendface to MeWe, then tried Telegram for a bit. They had discussed Signal between MeWe and Telegram, but some didn’t like having to send contact information to an administrator.
Ultimately, I spun up a rocket.chat server for us all, and they’ve been fairly happy with it. Although I now prefer Matrix/Synapse
the average person doesnt care about internet privacy, hence why xiaomi phones sell so well or platforms like discord and whatsapp are so widely used.
lots of people are in favor of id verification, believe it or not, because they actually think that it’ll stop the children from using social media.
They’re called idiots.
I know, not really - but that’s always my gut reaction 
After WhatsApp conveniently stopped working on GOS in June I advised my workplace I would be deleting it, and if they wish to continue to have a work chat group they would need to download Signal.
Surprisingly, it worked. They’re now on Signal and I’m on Molly.
Sometimes it works to be dogged. I simply deleted every chat app that wasn’t Signal, got a data-only plan, and told my friends & family that if they wanted to contact me, Signal was how.
It’s possible to lose connections this way. Paradoxically though, if people do not take a stand like this, the situation where someone else is left out because they aren’t using Signal happens way less often. So most people can just stay on other, less secure stuff.
I will say though, humanity got on just fine socially before we had instant messaging, or even telephone calls. Physical connections trump digital ones, almost always.
Maybe the best way forward is to keep raising awareness about these issues, even when the response is muted. I get that it’s frustrating—I feel it too
Ask them to download it for your birthday. It sounds stupid but is ridiculously effective.
Well, I’ve saved it. Thanks for the link!
I set it up for family multiple times, so they just need to open the app and that’s it. That has been quite successful so far (reasons for the most part: not very tech savvy/motivated to set it up or setting it up themselves was ‘too much to handle’ (stress etc)). In case of friends though its rather a rocky road, I agree.
As others have told as well, I told everyone I would only be able to contacted by call, SMS or Signal and do not consider picking up WhatsApp ever again. I also told them I would not speak about anything personal outside of Signal, so they could call or SMS me to talk about the weather or similar if they would not use Signal.
It’s ridiculous. People buy powerful phones every two years or so, but refuse to run an additional messenger.
It literally would take only this to abandon WhatsApp.
I also tell my circle they would only convince one single person to make Signal be fully adopted in time, but they do not even consider that.
And even if you convince a sizeable group of family and friends to use Signal, they still use WhatsApp to contact each other.
They are just that stubborn.
I was able to get my whole family on Signal and thankfully they actually use it.
It is annoying, for sure. The network effect is huge for messaging, and I’ve found most people in the US are fine just sticking with SMS/RCS/iMessage because it’s the default. I get annoyed when I go abroad and basically cannot function without WhatsApp or, to a lesser extent, Line. I keep those around, but only install and use them when I’m in situations that require it. At least we’re getting E2EE over RCS here in the US, so there’s some level of privacy enhancement on the horizon for those like me who are largely stuck there. I have at least gotten half of my extended family onto Signal.
Don’t hate the player hate the game son. They’re also the victims.
But yeah, it’s frustrating.
I decided to do the nuclear approach this year as well, but for RCS. I had spent a good chunk of time trying to get it to work properly on GrapheneOS. Ironically, it was after GrapheneOS made it easier to setup RCS that I decided to ditch it. The idea of giving Google so much access to my device just for this stupid app was irritating me. And then I realized, what am I doing this for? Why am I playing defense and trying to make everything frictionless for other people? That’s not how you get others to change.
I already got my close friends and family on Signal by basically begging them and going on long winded coversations about privacy, which was never doable with people I’m not close with. So I was just using RCS with people not in my immediate circle. Most people in the US will default to their default messenger, so either iMessage or Google Messages.
But I realized that keeping Google Messages/RCS working actually made converting people to Signal harder. People would see a somewhat functional messaging experience thanks to RCS and then the only thing I could sell them on was privacy, which no one cares about.
Now I just tell people I primarily use Signal and to message me there if they want to best reach me. If they insist on sending SMS/MMS, and it’s more than a brief, non-sensitive back anf forth, I’ll gradually complain about the experience. Like complain about missing messages, poor image quality, etc. Then tell them to “just install Signal” because it’s easier and “it just works.”
Surprisingly, it’s actually working.
I purposely avoid defending why I use Signal over other messengers. Offense is the best defense. Take a playbook from the obnoxious iMessage users that refuse to budge so much that they’re fine telling android users to buy a new phone just so they can keep using iMessage. Why Signal? “This is just what I use.” Can we use xyz instead? “i don’t want to install another app. Just send me it on Signal.”
At this point, and after a lot of advocacy and patience on my end, I’m happy that extended family (on both sides), 90% of my friends, my workplace, my professors and students, and even my main service contacts, (car mechanic, handyman, my barber, my teachers, travel agent, lawyer, stationary next door, and so many others) are now on Signal.
One thing that also really worked nicely and I highly recommend it is to have an autoreply message on whatsapp. Something like: the person you are trying to reach is boycotting whatsapp (because of Meta’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza) [or enter whatever your reason is]. Please feel free to contact them on Signal instead. [add source] [add signal download link]
So many random people who tried to reach me suddenly switched to Signal because of this.
Even more crazy is entire hospitals and doctors and nurses use whatsapp for coridinating wards and areas.
These are people who can process the most advanced medical knowledge but have little to none basic computer usage.
If you ask management or anyone to download signal and say its like whatsapp but more secure, they look at you with a dismissal look!
It will be too late once they realise it does not. Then they will do something once it personally affects them.
Yep, they send patient info over WhatsApp to each other. It’s absolutely crazy. Even if it is e2ee surely someone will have a plaintext backup on Google Drive and BOOM, it’s out there.
I recently read that Palintir teamed up with the NHS or something to that effect, so hospital privacy is no more. It’s a joke.