How do I transition my friends from Instagram DMs to Signal as a Gen Z individual in the US?
I just don't see it happening. Shit I have a hard time getting them to use god damn Whatsapp or Telegram (still bad but at least better than Instagram).
They are all iPhone users in the US so as you may expect they are too damn lazy to install another messaging app despite having Instagram Snapchat Tiktok BeReal and whatever shitty social media app that exists on the App Store.
For the love of god don't just say "you need bettee friends" ๐ cause let's be honest finding a privacy conscious person that you also can get along with in the US as Gen Z is practically impossible.
This is kinda what I did. I basically said it will be multiple hours before I respond to SMS/Discord/etc but I will respond within the hour on Telegram/Element
I'm not popular at all, I've got like 4 friends lol. I'm Gen Z too, so not sure why you're implying that I'm not young. If your friends will ostracise you over Signal, you may need new, better friends.
What other option is there? If you can't convince them yourself, it's not like the internet has some magic bullet for making them switch to another app.
Millennial here. Lucky enough that about 1/3rd of our friend group (and four family members) are somewhat privacy focused and moved to Signal. But getting the rest of everyone to move to better E2E messaging is rough.
A few years ago I got 5 of my millennial friends to move from FB Messenger to Telegram and it took some peer pressure from me and essentially one hangout where we were all together, and moved in one go. Telegram is not perfect but overall it's much better than being on FB messenger.
I did the same thing with my family. I was only keeping FB for the family group chat. Just told them I was deleting FB and moving to Telegram. Set up a group in TG and they all switched then and there.
I deleted Facebook and Instagram and joined Signal. Not everybody transitioned (instead they wanted me to join WhatsUp lol), but it was a good decision in the long run.
Of course not everybody will transition as well, but let me tell you those who did (in my case) are those who want to be really in contact with you. For the rest I use SMS and E-mail like in the old days haha. You just have to hope that eventually they will join.
It's really hard decision that you have to think about (it took me some time) but I just say "F*** that" and just did it. Until I remove my Fb and Ig they think that I wasn't going to do it but well ^^.
I just told everyone "I am only using Signal from now on. If you want to message me do it through that." Worked for those who actually want to keep in touch.
That's kind of what it came down to for me too. Hey signal is good and its free. I don't have Snapchat, fb, tiktok, WhatsApp or telegram. Its signal or SMS.
Also if you can get a group together for a purpose like playing call of duty together that can help with adoption.
I tried convincing my group chats and various friends i messaged on facebook quite a bit to download signal with zero success. About a year later i nuked all my social media and told em to text me.
The important people all moved over to signal eventually after that.
Its kind of a sucky way to do it but it worked for me
Same for me. A few years back I read the WhatsApp privacy policy and immediately deleted it. Told everyone to message me on Signal instead. Most of my friends got Signal after that
It is better but is even harder to convince others to use than Signal because you have to share some random generated ID and then name the contacts accordingly and looks like some hacker man shit to normies so they will probably get turned off.
Set up matrix instance and invite them. Better to use something you control over signal which is run by a company on their servers. Saves you the trouble of having to do this all again down the line if something happens with signal. Also there are many chat bridges for stuff like signal, IG, WhatsApp, etc. Theres even an Imessage one but it is not in the ansible playbook yet.
As a gen z I find this to be basically impossible unless the platform is already in flux. I'm sure Instagram will do something people hate soon enough so just be ready when it goes down.
finding a privacy conscious person that you also can get along with in the US as Gen Z is practically impossible.
I'm not sure what answer you're expecting. There isn't one. You can't make people give a shit about privacy. You can change your standards, you can make exceptions to your privacy rules for friends (defeating the purpose), or you can accept that most people don't care and think it's weird that you do. Nobody said the private life was one bursting with social activity.
This is straight up misinformation about Signal. The internet was made in part by the US government, so was Tor. You don't avoid using those, and it's very public knowledge that they were created with help from the feds.
I hope one day, that we have a viable protocol like email that will free everybody from vendor lock-in into messaging apps. Allowing us to chose our platform freely.
Unfortunately, I donโt think Matrix is there yet
Yeah have the same issue. Why tf are all the normies using this dogwater called wattsapp is beyond me.
I just stopped using those apps, if anybody wants to reach me, they have my number. Suddenly I have a bit more free time. Win win.
well, people started using it for years and years, then facebook bought it. the more people and the more tightly knit, the more the platform solidifies, the harder it is for people to move. suddenly it's easier to contact businesses through whatsapp than e-mail. I remember one time when whatsapp fucked up and everyone wanted to move to telegram, but when asked why they haven't done so yet, they replied "I'm just waiting for people to start dipping"
Start with your family. A small group of friends. The 1-5 people you communicate with the most. Though, to be completely honest - iMessage is still a far cry better than instagram messages and SMS.
This probably wonโt work for everyone but I ended up deleting social media accounts. After that, I made more of an effort to maintain the relationships I cared about. I texted more, called more, invited them out more, etc.
Slowly but surely, they became annoyed with regular SMS and I offered telegram or signal as an alternative because it gave them features they were accustomed to on social media messaging platforms.
Luckily, my friends liked me enough to download another app to keep in contact
Just assume that everyone involved lives a life of multiple identities and they aren't ready to share their secret Signal identity with you yet.
I'm being sarcastic, but that actually isn't that far off from how things tend to actually work, it's just a matter of whether someone is conscious of how much their online behavior is performative.
I tried to get them on Matrix/element first. Couldn't do it, but then Signal looked easy enough and sticked. Might give another try if I can get my own Matrix server at home.
With Matrix you can use Mautrix-Bridge that allows you to basically communicate with every popular messanger out there. I highly recommend reading the entire docs first before setting it up.
Edit: the link above leads to the go-based bridges. Here are the python based bridges
I also tried to make my friends use signal or anything that respects privacy, but it was almost impossible. They were used to their platform which is instagram or discord, and they didnt want to move since they had no reason except privacy, which is not their major problem.
The good old โI've got nothing to hideโ. I really don't understand why people care so much about not getting a better messaging app. You can still use everything else and it's not like getting into a new system. Signal and WhatsApp have a very similar interface. Right down to those awful stories Signal added.
For real, just my closest friends have gotten signal, and techies, and privacy focused family. Slow up hill battle tbh.
My next trick is more family on the wagon, by convincing them to do more video calls through signal. They want to use Duo, but we are getting closer to more family with Signal than Duo.
Something that also helps, shame them for watching ads, there is no reason you have to watch ads unless you are using the shitty apps that force it on you. You separate them from ads though and you get less push back on new apps. Them ads really do be working on people.
CIA Funding CIA โ RFA โ OTF โ Signal. While this article by Yasha Levine gets into the details, it is no secret that the original funder of Open Whisper Systems (the previous name for signalโs development team), was the Open Technology Fund: itself publicly listed as a subsidiary of Radio Free Asia, a US state-run organization whose main goal (along with the other โRadio Freeโ incarnations such as Radio Free Europe, or Free Cuba Radio) is regime change for those Asian governments who donโt align with the USโs foreign policy interests.
TOR was started and funded by the US Naval Research Labs ยฏโ \_โ (โ ใโ )โ _โ /โ ยฏ it's not perfect, but I know it's widely used as a first line of defense. I won't comment on the Radio Free Asia stuff because I have no knowledge of that, but I feel like there's a lot of privacy tools we use that were initially funded by the US government, and even the US military in some cases. It always comes back to relative threat levels. Are you trying to avoid invasive corporate monitoring and some degree of government surveillance as a regular person? Signal is fine. Are you actively trying to hide from government intelligence agencies? Maybe it's not so fine. Signal is still preferable to a messaging application owned by Meta, imo.
Holy heck, it almost seems like there is some counter-intel op against Signal going on here by the powers that be that doesn't want you to use it because of its encryption (see? even I can make conspiracy theories like this). Now let me copy-paste one of my earlier posts:
Governments routinely fund the development of secure and open communication systems because they themselves benefit from having such communication tools which can be trusted. By the logic presented in this "essay", one shouldn't be using the internet at all. What you need to check is whether Signal's technical claims about its encryption is true or not. There is nothing in this article that raises any question on Signal's encryption. We already know how much data Signal has on its users through their responses to various legal subpoenas over the years (spoiler: its pretty much nothing).
This is full on, unadulterated FUD. Practically the definition of it. Signal is tried, tested and legit. You are not doing anyone any favors by spreading such bullshit.
How stupid is this? The internet and Tor were also built in part by the US government. You not gunna use the internet because of that? Clearly you're here so that's not the case.
Just send them the app url and let them know you do private chats on a private messenger. Show them all the fun stuff like stickers, GIFS, groups, stories, etc. Save the delete messages stuff for later.
I recently started sending trivia questions to my friends in group chats on the old horrible comms. To get the cash rewards for winning answers, they must respond to me on the specified decentralized comms (Nextcloud, Session, XMPP, Matrix, Simplex, fediverse..). It costs me some money, but we are having fun while they learn new things.
We should be aware that signal might not be the promised lands. It was created by a CIA affiliate. It's also suspectible to National Security Letters from the U.S., requiring it to disclose information about its users.
Also why does signal need my phone number?
A viable alternative might be France based Olvid. But I haven't done much research on them.
Tor was created and is funded by the US Navy. Does that mean we should stop using Tor?
Also Signal was asked to provide data previously and the oy data they were able to provide was the last time the user logged on, and the time that they registered which is farrrrr outside of my threat model and 99.99999% of people's threat models