Separate from privacy, on WhatsApp I regularly got messages by spam accounts. Not daily, but pretty close. Have never gotten a spam message on signal

I would just make a signal account and let them know they can add you. Maybe get them in one by one.

One is owned by a US tech corp whose primary income stream is building advertising profiles on users and selling advertising space to businesses while handing data off to authoritarian governments without warrants.

The other is a US non profit where the FBI admitted the only data they can get from them is when the user registered and when they were last online.

I’ve been down this path. Getting people to switch was a mixed bag. Some did and have stuck around using it. But others either refused (“another messaging app?!”) or wanted to but ran into problems using Signal.

I’ve also run into problems connecting with people on Signal. They just aren’t findable, even with their privacy settings relaxed and with me trying several formats of their number. After troubleshooting and having other people try, it seems random and makes no sense.

So the three biggest downsides of Signal are: a) users having to juggle yet another messaging app (because their friends/family are scattered across several and they find this overwhelming already); b) Signal looking a bit ‘ugly’ of not as useable to some people; c) people getting frustrated at not being able to connect with friends who are already on there.

The biggest upsides to Signal are a) it’s not Meta or some other corporation trying to profit from exploring its users; b) it’s a clean and simple UX (IMO) that doesn’t try to do too much extra; c) the organization behind it takes security very seriously.

[>]I need something that can be understood on a personal level as some of my friends are deeply cynical and have no concern about escaping techno-feudalism and surveillance

[>]every comment is about privacy or evil business guys

If your WhatsApp loving friends need some convincing is switch to Signal I would tell them:

• Signal is more private than WhatsApp.
• Signal has a “stories” feature similar to Instagram or Snapchat… I think, I don’t use that sort of thing. They added it in the last few years and I’ve been wanting to try it but like you my friend group is mostly elsewhere apart from a growing few who have had enough of Meta’s BS. The Europeans and South Americans I know are extra embedded in WhatsApp because SMS stopped being used there much earlier than in the US.
• Nearly no spam! I can’t recall having ever received spam on Signal. WhatsApp is full of it.
• Signal is a simpler app. If you have anyone older, anyone handicapped, anyone with a traumatic brain injury, etc. in your friend group, Signal is much more sensical and easy to use. WhatsApp is cluttered and has some baked in AI slop.
• Built in scheduled sends. You can press and hold the send button and choose when your message will go out. This is great for a night owl like me who doesn’t get around to answering until everyone is asleep and also doesn’t want to wake anyone up.

Hope this helps, and let us know how it goes,many of us are trying to do the same thing. How big is your group? Can we help you make a slideshow presentation? :D

They are not comparable in my view. One is owned by Facebook, known for MITMing smartphones via a VPN app and successfully intercepting and decrypting traffic from competing apps.

The other is widely regarded to be the best option for most people and most uses cases for privacy and security.

I tried to move my friends to Signal. They are too lazy. So I’m still stuck using Facebook Messenger and hating it.

My family is too non techy and heads in the cloud, so I’m still using Whatsapp.

Not because I personally want to, but because I’m not a hikikomori.

Signal does everything Whatsapp does and it aligns with my personal values:

1. I can support a healthy, competitive market by keeping alternatives alive - lack of competition is the death of innovation. Entshittification is only possible because there isn’t enough competition.

2. I help shield people who really need privacy (like journalists and whistle-blowers) by adding to the crowd for them to disappear in. I think of it a little as getting vaccinated - the chances are extremely low that I’ll ever really need privacy protection but I do it anyway, to protect the “at-risk” population, and to keep options alive in case my situation ever changes.

3. Privacy is not about having something to hide but about the right to consent. I don’t need anonymity, I have nothing to hide. However there are still some things that I don’t want some random Meta employee to know about me, or photos that are for my husband only. Signal allows me to choose what I share and with whom.

Edit: a word

Meta

I am unconvinced that Zuckerberg isn’t personally searching Meta messages to select future Epstein Island 2.0 victims.

WhatsApp and meta have had a number of data breaches and accoint losses due to how the technology functions.

Signal is so secure that Defence use it. There’s articles of russia “hacking” singal but looking into them shows it’s only via social enginnnering to scan a QR code. Its so secure from accoint and data loss that signal literally can only give minimal evidence in court (compared to the Proton VPN stuff recently).

But TBH you might want to look into “How convince people of Y when they want X”. Your friends want vinilla and you want chocolate. Its not specifically about WhatsApp vs signal.

It was easier for me to just make new friends

It’s simply trust in the organization that maintains the app.

Unless you’re coordination/organizing about legal grey or red areas then it’s not much danger. Meta says it’s E2E but do they really not have access to your data? I don’t believe them. Any data they have would be happily handed over to the authorities just like your protonmail.

Signal just straight up doesn’t have access since it’s all stored at the endpoint and they provide no remote backup.