The problem is that most people simply don’t care about their privacy. And I had that exact same opinion where if they didn’t care, then leave it at that and carry on.
BUT
When there is legislation being implemented around the world to implement mass population control tools, the people that don’t care will realize why they should have, but it will be too late.
I think that is super important too! Thanks for sharing!
Without delving too deep, if I summarize, I believe privacy is a pillar necessary in society to achieve freedom. And we’re at a tipping point where we’re starting to lose rights as individuals and freedom because of laws abiding citizens. Because I’m scared of a Big Brother Society and want to prevent this.
Asking questions was also mentioned by several people. I will be adding this point somewhere. Ask questions / talk about what the person value / listen with empathy and kindness / be willing to be vulnerable yourself / look into the eyes.
Thanks for sharing everyone! I’ll start adding some quotes in the main post!
It seems quite oversimplification Its more like “Privacy paradox” than not caring.
If you ask people “can you let me install malware on your phone and surveil everything you do or talk 24/7, and AI will prepare me transcripts for review” - I think most will say no. But I am a good guy, so why not? (on the other hand, I have no interest to surveil, so not very believable )
For comparison, surveillance by hackers, secret agencies, corporations or government, is far worse and dangerous than surveillance by me, but too distant to imagine or feel I would guess to care enough.
Humans evolved to care for privacy among group of people around (through thousands of years), but not against massive-distant concepts like privacy against “corporations”. These massive things never existed before to have a natural intuition how dangerous it can be.
The challenge is how to make these massive things feel more close.
(etc. many other reasons for ‘privacy paradox’ to discover)
Its too private, so I think I cannot, or not yet. Does anyone know a website where people can share source files of posters? (open source graphics?)
I believe the same things; that’s why I write a blog. But I grew up in conservative Evangelical Christian circles and the rhetoric in this post, though it comes from a good place, is eerily similar to the stuff I grew up with.
My own view is that informing people is always helpful, but attempting to persuade people is not effective. As a teacher, I show things (Signal, Ente, this forum) to my students, but I try not to be evangelical about it; I don’t have strategies for persuading them or what to say if they say this or that.
My own interest began when I discovered there were no commercially available alternatives to Android and iOS. It was then good to find forums like these, subreddits, teachers, gurus, blogs, podcasts etc. It was all there waiting for me when I had questions.
Another thing that worked was getting people to join me on tools that I think are good, like Signal.
Maybe there are different approaches that can work, but I am a bit allergic to collective strategising with a view to persuade others.
I sincerely understand where you’re coming from and agree to some extent. Leave people be.
But at a certain point where collectively we might lose everything (see digital ID and chat control slippery slope), I think this topic is a necessity.
While part of me agrees the other gets some major Martin Niemöller vibes. At some point you have to take a stand and try to persuade people that what they are doing or saying is, in fact, wrong. At some point not standing up is complicit.
I am not sure if being conditioned to never attempt to persuade someone is a positive outcome for you.
Not mentioning as the ambivert quiet man that I am
Persuading is just, not an easy feat unfortunately, not even the slightest of best argument can get someone to switch or something like that.
Honestly, for me, I’m happy if I can get all of my actual contacts I communicate with regularly to adopt Signal or Simplex, and use a password manager, then I will feel accomplished. There is no way I can convince normal family and friends to consider VPN, pi-hole, email alias, GrapheneOS, veracrypt, Linux, open source, etc.
I will add that having children, and being around parents, has made conversations about privacy a lot easier to evangelize digital privacy.
The conversations go from “how does this affect me” to “how does this effect my children”.
While most adults are comfortably giving up their own privacy, you’ll find many won’t feel the same way about their children.
So, I typically approach conversations these days with a larger scope, and try and have people look down the current paths of digital privacy and imagine what their kids will deal with.
Also, people generally are interested in something you’re passionate about. I try less to convert people now and rather lead by example. I’m slowly changing my daily phone habits so I rely on it less, and I pull out my Linux laptop or a book at my work lunch which usually gets people curious.
True
But what I have learned is that people only ever act if they get affected or there is an imminent threat or a reason…
Which is unfortunate as some things can be too late to act upon.
At this point I take it as a gradual approach, where gradually when an alternative is better/convenient or needed, I pitch them in the alternative without focusing on the privacy aspect.
There are a couple of things I do to be able to have privacy conversations.
First is that everyone around me knows that I am into digital privacy for the most part. I just own it. They know the schpeel they’ll get from me if they ask. But I never preach at people, I just can super dive into it and try to do so in an empathetic way. Reality is that it’s not their fault that we live in surveillance capitalism, so I talk about it like an issue that we can address for ourselves but which ultimately needs bigger solutions.
Secondly, I share privacy stuff and bad news on social media. I know for some that’s not feasible. I specifically got active on Instagram, only allow my followers to see my stuff, and only post stories. What do I post about? Digital privacy.
The idea is that we are bombarded with posts all the time from people we do and don’t follow. Can I sneak in digital privacy topics into the information diet of my community? Surely they won’t do anything with it in the moment, but over time they will develop a passive awareness of the issue where I (unfortunately) will have been their only exposure to it. Hopefully that will materialize in action some day. The other option is that they never hear the bad news and thus don’t feel the pain, so it’s about choosing hard work for some result or no work for no result.
The nice thing about stories as well is that they’re passive. If you didn’t check IG that day, you didn’t see my story and this it doesn’t count as “privacy guy posting again”. And if you do see it then you can quickly move to the next story, so it’s just an impression that I’ve left. You don’t have to see my stories once you know what I post about, so it’s easy to opt-out.
Again, I know it’s not an option for many of us here on this forum, but maybe there’s another way you can do something similar.
I hear you! The goal is not necessarily to give people a script, but providing guidance and try to make a change. I think I’m also making this post for myself because I don’t believe it is easy to make people interested in the topic and figuring the how is not easy.
Would you like to share what you have been doing on your side?
I think arguing is the wrong approach, as people most often don’t want to argue.
Unless of course, the person you’re trying to convince seem to want to argue. Then, there will also be classic arguments and counter-arguments in this topic.
I think the approach would rather be of empathy and understanding why most people don’t take small actions.
If this works, then great! I don’t feel comfortable adding a ‘kids’ based approach, as government and other institutions are doing, especially during these times of digital ID push
That’s actually a good idea. I’ll try to make a list of easy switch with a convenience approach.
@InternetGhost I won’t be adding anything about suggesting to posts on social medias as I feel it is a bit out of scope.
But for anyone reading it, of course please do share privacy stuff on social medias
Its more like “Privacy paradox” than not caring.
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