Championing privacy and tech freedom with friends and family has often been a thankless or worse experience for me. Being the bearer of bad news and inconvenient facts puts misplaced ire on me. Ignorance is bliss. I feel a responsibility to my friends and family and do not want to be alone in understanding. At the same time, I do not want to be hated. I really try to restrain and tone down the topic, but the ideas consume me. I guess many people here have a similar experience?
@krock It's a case of intentional self-inflicted ignorance to avoid the inconvenience of ethical duty & activism.
@krock When privacy & tech freedom fail as selling points, I try to appeal to other aspects. E.g. if the audience is progressive, then tell them that Trump was in power because of Facebook (catalyzed by #CambridgeAnalytica). I'm sorry to say that the tactic isn't working. They still won't give up #Facebook even knowing it empowered the most notorious scumbag in modern times.
@resist1984 I have found that if I can make the topic fun in some way, they will open ears a little. That is a hard thing to do with such a serious topic. I try not to play on people's pre-existing biases to sway them, but I understand why it is a reality of persuasive techniques. Thank you for your commiseration with me.
@krock one thing that goes a long way is to make no concessions yourself. I don't have any #GAFAM accts (exceptionally amazon acct is stale), so anyone who wants to reach me must do so outside of #Facebook, Google, etc. I tell normies they can only reach me on protonmail if they have a PM acct also, or Wire. I'm the one person in the group that ruins the convenience of everyone using FB.
@resist1984 Same here for the most part. I poisoned or closed my surveilled accounts and offer to help others setup better protocols to communicate with me. It creates some isolation, but I can bear it.
@krock I try to be reasonably pragmatic. I'm honest with people about my feelings on issues, but I also understand that people aren't going to ditch their iPhone or Android because I said so. I feel kind of odd at times; such as when I told my kids' school I wouldn't allow a Chromebook in my house and bought them their own laptops. That said, if I don't set the tone and a good example for my kids, they won't understand what rights they actually have.
@krock One of the hardest things was deleting Facebook years ago. I basically just had to put my foot down, tell people how to get in touch with me and pull the trigger regardless. Seeing how many people didn't care to keep in touch if it meant being inconvenienced was a little disheartening, but it helped to weed out who matters and who doesn't.
@gerowen @krock I feel you. It's been much the same experience for me. I'm the weird person in my family that will always go on about privacy and encryption about which basically no one cares except me, at least in my social circle. It does feel lonely at times but I still feel more comfortable with the knowledge what I'm protecting myself from.
@krock
Oh yes, i have exactly the same experience.
😩
@krock This really shows the immaturity of the software industry and its lack of accountability. Imagine if other fields had to rely on lone activists...
@krock
I've just stopped trying to do that.
I've managed to get a couple to install Signal bc they realized I really was never going to install WA.
I guess they have to find out the hard way. In the meantime, I try to contribute to better alternatives, so that when they're ready to switch, the alternative(s) should be better then today.
@krock
Can't say I'm much of a champion, I use Telegram and I'll only delete Whatsap in May using the new policy as an excuse, but yes, facing several issues with Nextcloud office integration and listening to why my wife is going back to Google Docs can be disheartening.
But still, she supports all my decisions and uses Linux (with Chrome and Gmail, but a big win nevertheless).
@krock Hard to get normies to understand the full extent of the problem when they realise right away that "this conversation is going in the direction of pushing me away from something that's fun or convenient". Just like meat eaters w/a shred of empathy don't want to hear about what animals go through.. the knowledge comes w/responsibility they don't want, so they refuse the knowledge.