Mastodawn

it is a bit ironical to recommend #Signal, a centralized American service that runs on #Amazon, #Google and #Microsoft services and depends heavily on them spending millions each year just to pay to Amazon and then in an #European context recommend that as "digital independence"

Some people say it is a compromise, but the bar is way too low if you recommend Signal at the “digital independence day”. At this point It's about selling a feeling instead of actual accomplishment

#Europe #digitalindependence #diday #did #autonomy #freedom #Sovereignty

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secid 🇩🇪1d ago

@adbenitez
It might be ironical, but it is a first step away from WhatsApp, which is the nearly 100% alternative in Germany.
It might be a 10% step only away from total dependance but 10% is better than nothing And maybe - only maybe - we can built an European Signal (or Molly) later or convince people to change to Matrix or ... do something even better in future.
Nevertheless IMHO every little step counts and if the change to Signal is the only step accepted by most we should go this step.

#Europe #DiDay #Signal

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adb

@secid yes, but instead of wasting time and effort into promoting Signal they could be promoting something else, for example, if you want to promote veganism you don't need to go suggesting sausage instead of steak as a first step, you could start by suggesting some vegan steak directly

not wasting years telling everyone how great sausages are and how much more ethical than steaks and then trying again to convince them to change

at some point people stop listening to you and will start thinking you are just a crazy guy that think they have got the time to be switching over and over and wasting their time learning new tools and spending time with computers

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secid 🇩🇪1d ago

@adbenitez
Just do it your way and I'll do it mine. We'll see who of us will be considered the crasy guy.
I tried both ways for nearly 10 years now and have a strong opinion which way works outside a small bubble of (positive) nerds although I _am_ one of the nerds.
Good luck.

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adb 1d ago

@secid well with Delta Chat some people are having good success and it has things that are better than Signal even, some people use Delta Chat because there they can have the family shopping list, or because kids can use it without SIM cards

or simply because it works way better with multi-device and multi-profile support, quite some people have lost their Signal chats and messages in a device migration 🤷

and any ways, the thing is, you might have some success changing people from WhatsApp to Signal, but just don't market it as "digital independence from US big corp" because that is just a plain lie

but good luck...

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Steven Reed 18h ago

@adbenitez @secid to some extent it's different threat models, isn't it? Whatsapp vs Signal is about dropping unethical features forced into the former, maybe higher likelihood of subverting E2E at the request of USgov, etc. Agreed there's plenty of people who would probably never consider DC for whom Signal is probably the best option. But it definitely doesn't solve the decentralization issue, so at minimum still vulnerable to deliberate or accidental outage etc.