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Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

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Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#151

Post by Krasnol »

andreygrehov wrote: post #135
Krasnol wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's actually in a user's best interest to allow the data to be shared. Otherwise doctors will see ads about vaping and fishers will see ads about the latest JavaScript IDEs Who the hell do you think you are to decide what is in my best interest? You are attempting to STEAL my attention. This is abusive behaviour. I don't want this! Also: If I go on a page for fishing stuff, the shop is free to advertise certain fi…

(facepalm) > Who the hell do you think you are to decide what is in my best interest? I'm not deciding anything for you. I can only recommend. You either share your data or you don't. It's your decision. > If I go on a page for fishing stuff, the shop is free to advertise certain fishing stuff products they want to push. ON THEIR PAGE. Of course they can do so. Except the times when they want to maximize their ad rev…

> I'm not deciding anything for you. I can only recommend. You either share your data or you don't. It's your decision.

I may decide because I know how ad-blockers work (and even there it drips through as you must know best) but most out there don't decide. They are being robbed along the way without even knowing it. You rob them of their data, their attention and divert it afterwards for your profit. You're being paid to make this crime work.

> Of course they can do so. Except the times when they want to maximize their ad revenue, so they sell the ad slot to other companies.

And how is the fishing shop becoming an ad reseller something that would make your point above valid? Your attention rape has nothing to do anymore with me getting fishing stuff which I've been looking for. The purpose completely switched over to third parties. Meaning your employee and the shop proprietor sharing the profits of this crime. Completely unrelated to the products the shop sells.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#153

Post by xenonite »

wreath wrote: post #99

I went cold turkey. I live abroad, in one of my trips back home, I installed Telegram in my parent's phones and showed them how they can call me (mom started spamming me with stickers immediately), asked each friend that I met in person to do the same. They all did except one friend. I posted on facebook that i'm quitting it and left my contact info. Some got in touch, many didn't. Life went on.

I guess that many of those who didn't get in touch don't check FB anymore.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#155

Post by rurban »

I'm manager of about 100 independent people in Germany, where almost nobody uses Facebook. Maybe 5 of them.

We are currently organizing via 5-7 WhatsApp groups, and in a couple of months we need to switch, by my estimate. This is only India, but the rest will follow, and the change is not acceptable at all.

So I'm preparing now a slow switch to Signal, which seems to be most acceptable here. So far nobody took the initial bite, so I'll have to prepare a longer massmail. Telegram not, this stores all messages centrally.

It will be longer process, esp. since our groups are Corona affected and we are doing nothing. But in about 2 months I hope to have everybody switched over.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#156

Post by px1999 »

You convince them in the same way you'd convince them of anything they're unsure of or against.

Give them a reason that they care enough about and make it painless enough and they may follow. Listen to their concerns and try to find ways to address them or to find workable compromises. Remember that you are placing an additional imposition on them. Asking them to switch services for you is asking them a favour. Each person (or social group) has their own motivations, perspective and other attributes which means that the tactic to win over each person (/group) should be different.

I'd caution against a hardline stance, I've lost friends (acquaintances?) who went down that path to what I'd consider a paranoid extent (going sms or email or "obscure" services only). It just became too hard to keep them in the loop when organising eg group events, so they started to get excluded. Their behavior just didn't make sense considering their (presumably low) threat profile, and they'd made the barriers to contact too high in comparison to the social value they brought.

In my case, these people were socially inept (selfish?) and felt that how we communicated was solely their choice, which is kind of true in a way, but the other person has the choice of whether they continue to try to engage.

I'm not saying that you need to entirely embrace these services as a necessary evil, but it's not a binary choice either. You can be easier to reach on the services that you want to use, and only rarely catch up on whatsapp from a sandbox machine. You can encourage people and help set them up on the services that you want to use. You can advocate for privacy awareness within the groups you're in. You can refuse to share more secret things like passwords on the less privacy-aware networks. All of these things will contribute to avoiding less privacy-oriented services.

It's a transition, and a social process.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#157

Post by fakedang »

nostromo wrote: post #96
mbesto wrote: post #85

I just did it with my family, who use FB and know at a high level why FB is bad. Here's what I said: "WhatsApp is now sucking all of your convos (including baby photos, etc.) into Facebook with their recent policy update. We're switching our family group chat to Signal". My mom, who's nearly 70 did it almost instantaneously. EDIT: My parents began to understand why FB is bad by reading books and watching documentarie…

That may be a good motivator, but it's not true. The content of the messages are not going to be "sucked up into Facebook." The content of Whatsapp messages aren't accessible by Facebook.

All media content damn well is sucked by FB. Read the TOS.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#158

Post by grawprog »

tmpz22 wrote: post #131
Ansil849 wrote: post #89

I have stopped communicating with friends and family who try communicating via insecure apps. I send a response saying I will only read Signal or similar messages from them. Some think this is a hardline, but my security is important to me, and true friends and family need to respect that. It's kind of like how my sister is vegan, so when she comes over for dinner, I cook vegan dishes for her. I respect and accommoda…

Does your family's threat model actually include targeted surveillance by US intelligence agencies? There are many reasons to switch off whatsapp, but I don't believe it should be considered insecure unless you are a journalist, activist, or citizen of a country with severe oppressive regimes: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, etc. If your threat model DOES include US intelligence agencies, you shouldn't use…

>surveillance by US intelligence agencies? There are many reasons to switch off whatsapp, but I don't believe it should be considered insecure

Well, I consider getting targetted facebook ads based on the content of my whatsapp messages to be insecure.

Being secure also means secure against the company that created/provides the software also.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#159

Post by Mogzol »

ryanmercer wrote: post #118

(serious) can someone explain to me how widespread WhatsApp is in your social circles? I'm unaware of a single individual that I know using WhatsApp and I only used it for a brief window of a few weeks when I (in Indiana) and a guy in Australia attempted to do a podcast together over a decade ago. Is this big with folks outside of the United States? Is it something that is largely used in the tech community? My frien…

It heavily depends on the country people are in. In the USA and Canada, Facebook Messenger is by far the most popular, but globally, WhatsApp has the most active users.

See: https://www.messengerpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/s...

https://www.messengerpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/s...

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#160

Post by leokennis »

gtirloni wrote: post #38
leokennis wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My strategy is: tell them I will be leaving WhatsApp, and they can reach me on Signal. If they don’t care enough to install a free app to talk to me, good riddance.

Good luck saying good riddance to your immediate family.

I’m hoping your family likes you more than they hate installing and setting up a dead simple to use and free app like Signal...
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