Privacy

41550 readers

1425 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

278

Why is it so hard to get friends to leave Discord, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others? Anyone else feel this? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by autonomoususer@lemmy.world to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

152 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I’ve been seeing this more and more in comments, and it’s got me wondering just how big this issue really is. A lot of people feel trapped in apps like Discord, WhatsApp, and Instagram, but can’t get their friends to leave.

It’s really annoying when you suggest trying something new, whether it’s a different app or just not using these platforms so much but sometimes it can feel like no one wants to go first.

So I’m curious, what apps do you feel most trapped in? And have you tried convincing your friends to leave them? What happened? Is it an issue for you, or are you just going along with the flow?

Looking forward to hearing if this is as common as it feels!

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 8 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

It's network effects. People have other friends on the network who have their own friends on the network, and so on. Leaving the network means convincing a critical mass of your network to leave along with you.

[–] twice_hatch@midwest.social 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

And it would be easier with good bridges, but of course the big platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc., refuse to bridge in or out with anything.

You can scrape public Facebook feeds, using paid services, but AFAICT you need a friend on the inside to publish your stuff into Facebook.

I guess that's one reason I shouldn't complain about Bluesky - They support Bridgy.

[–] cheloxin@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 hours ago

Are there even public feeds anymore? Anytime I've gone to Facebook since deleting it wants me to login first, no matter what the link was to

[–] libre_warrior@lemmy.ml 0 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

In other words, you say that we should just give up.

[–] yogthos@lemmy.ml 1 points 17 hours ago

I'm simply explaining why it's difficult for people to move from existing networks.