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.

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

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.

I just compare it to having a stalker. Imagine being in your bedroom and having someone looking at you from outside the window. Now, would you be ok with it if the person was invisible?

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

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

pull up embarasing posts from years ago to prove a point

Honestly, there are a lot of people whom I met believe that google can track/store all their information since they believe that they are too insignificant for that data to matter. Hard to change that mindset in the first place.

What i tend to do is just complain about how much resources trackers/spyware take up on my Phone/Computers, which tends to convience people better than just doing a “but mah privacy”. More people are united about a less laggier computer/phone after all lol.

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?

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.

Stalk their social media accounts to prove a point.

Most people are all like: “derp derp! Nothing to hide nothing to fear duuuuur 🤤”. There’s no reasoning with them. Don’t beat yourself up over it.

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

The only time an average person will care about privacy is when it’s taken away from them. Generally speaking, people just don’t care so don’t worry about it too much.

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.