I am soon moving out for university and am going to meet a bunch of new folks. But I was wondering how do you go about approaching this with privacy in mind?
It is a little bit whonky to ask someone you just met to download Signal, if it is a group of people then it is more acceptable, or like how do you keep in contact if they don't use any of the messaging platforms you use such as Signal and Telegram, and if you don't use any of the ones they use such as Whatsapp or Instagram DMs (yes zoomers in the US use these) or Snapchat? Do you just use SMS where videos are absolute shit quality and you have no privacy there either?
Let me know how you deal with this issue.
You're going to have to use what people around you use. Weather it's Whatsapp, Instagram groups, whatever. That is part of life. I'm forced to use WhatsApp because it's what everyone in my country uses. The alternative is having no contact with anybody.
Is this the most privacy friendly approach? No, of course not. But we all have to make compromises to live in the modern world, and this is one of them.
I'd just sms until you get to know someone better and can lightly convince them to use something like signal or they convince you to use whatever. You still need to live your life
As Moxie Marlinspike once said, the fine line between facism and social democracy is choice. In order to exist in certain social groups, you have to expand your scope of choice to be able participate. In my experience using TextSecure/Signal for a decade and having convinced all of my friends/immediate family/significant others to use it, the majority of new people that I have encountered even with Signal installed on their phones, do not use it. It's unfortunate, but most people only care about privacy to a certain degree, if at all. What I usually do is bite the bullet with SMS for a bit. If things are going somewhere, I eventually convince them onto Signal. If things don't pan out, then not too much damage done.
I'm going to quote another comment but not ping them; I don't want to argue with them; but instead provide counterpoints for the OP to consider.
Most people aren’t going to install Signal just to talk to you because it does not fit their use case.
This is false. While it does take more effort; it can be achieved. I can compose an SMS with an install link for the appropriate app-store and in-person assist you and tell you my ID on my privacy respecting apps of choice. Bluetooth transfers and QR codes also work too; so we can exchange other contact details as well.
I’m also gen z and from the US, I go to university, and most people who I know use Whatsapp or Discord to communicate.
Telegram is far superior to Whatsapp and close to Discord in features. Your generation is capable of using it; I see Gen Z on there all the time. Signal closely mimics iMessage in features; and it's available on both Android and iOS.
Bonus for the privacy-conscious; It has better privacy and cryptography. MProto isn't the most respected but it's sufficient for most day-to-day conversations.
Telegram is absolutely not vastly better than WhatsApp. Open Whisper Systems literally built the E2EE in WhatsApp. Its implementation of OTR predates signal.
Meanwhile, Telegram insists on rolling their own crypto and it’s closed source.
I think OP can and should try to get friends into Signal. But WhatsApp I’is almost certainly the answer to the OP. It offers well implemented proven off the record, E2EE communications, it’s widely adopted, cross platform. It’s miles better than SMS and Facebook or Instagram messenger or Snapchat. OP is looking for the best compromise, WhatsApp is it.
Lineagos run on an old Android phone with Aurora store to install and update play store apps. I just turn on the work profile when I check in and messages then turn it off. And it's not my main phone either so consequence is that I won't be instantly available, so ends up being more like email in terms of time it takes me to respond back. But, I am at least available on the preferred ways people want to communicate.
