We share the goal of making the world more private. I’m not trying to be cheeky or mean. I’m genuinely curious. Would you be against reading to learn how to talk more compellingly?

“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.

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

Do people need to care?

Do what you need to to secure your privacy, and let people know how much of a travesty it is that their privacy and rights are being stripped away, but at the end of the day they’re their own people and so if they choose not to care that’s their decision, and it’s not up to you to choose how they’re allowed to think or live their lives, even if it appears obviously wrong and short-sighted to you or I

I gave up on convincing people about privacy and all that. They don’t care and say the old crap “I have nothing to hide” but seem utterly perplexed when you tell them Facebook scandals (and then still keep using it).

People have chosen easy of use and laziness over privacy.

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.

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.

Stalk their social media accounts to prove a point.

But anything I can specifically say that works best in planting a seed in people’s mind?

‘It fails to include a libre software license text file. We do not control it, anti-libre software. Don’t fall for that scam.’

You need to make them ask you. People are bored of privacy. They will not ask about privacy. Also, people care less about getting and more about losing. Listen for complains and always link back to software freedom.

Here’s more: https://lemmy.world/post/21620691

I am privacy conscious and care about privacy even though I don’t care too much about my own personal privacy just for privacy’s sake.

Privacy advocacy runs deeper than just protecting your own data. Convincing someone to care about “their privacy” is more straightforward when they face a real threat. For example, a journalist in Mexico writing about a politician linked to organized crime has every reason to avoid being easily tracked. That person is not going to post their location on Facebook.

But most people aren’t under direct threat. If you read my texts, you’ll find casual conversations with family and dinner plans. I’m not afraid of someone showing up at my door, so I’m fine sharing my address to get a package delivered. Getting ads is a minor annoyance.

Still, I care about privacy. Not necessarily mine, but privacy as a principle. I care about what surveillance capitalism does to society. Even if my personal threat model is easy, I want tools and systems to exist for people with harder ones. Privacy is part of the kind of world I think we should live in, and its erosion usually points to larger structural problems.

So back to the question. It’s easier to convince someone to care about privacy if they feel directly threatened. But if they don’t, you need something else to make them give up convenience in the name of privacy. That something is ideology. You’re asking how to shift someone’s ideological framework. That’s hard, and not something you can do for them. You can recommend good material, share your reasoning, explain what led you to care. But they have to engage with the ideas themselves. Like with exercise, you can’t build someone’s muscles for them. You can’t implant the ideology, but you can create the conditions for it to take root.

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.

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 adds. 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.

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

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

I think if you just publicly practise decent privacy, people will be more inclined to do the same. e.g. all my friends know I’m not on WhatsApp and don’t use proprietary software in general. They know to talk to me on other platforms, and the fact that I’m like this means that others will likely feel more able to do the same if they are inclined. Nobody ever told me to care about privacy; I have always thought it was creepy if others can see all my personal business. I can’t imagine that that’s such a rare innate mindset to have, so other people who feel the same way should feel more able to put that into practice if they see you doing so. If they really want to broadcast all their personal data to the state and tech companies then they are within their right to, and I don’t see the point in trying to convince them to not do what they want to do.