How do I transition my friends from Instagram DMs to Signal as a Gen Z individual in the US?

by force if necessary

Just send them the app url and let them know you do private chats on a private messenger. Show them all the fun stuff like stickers, GIFS, groups, stories, etc. Save the delete messages stuff for later.

Don't have an answer but sharing in your pain as a millennial. 😭

I also tried to make my friends use signal or anything that respects privacy, but it was almost impossible. They were used to their platform which is instagram or discord, and they didnt want to move since they had no reason except privacy, which is not their major problem.

As a gen z I find this to be basically impossible unless the platform is already in flux. I'm sure Instagram will do something people hate soon enough so just be ready when it goes down.

I tried convincing my group chats and various friends i messaged on facebook quite a bit to download signal with zero success. About a year later i nuked all my social media and told em to text me.
The important people all moved over to signal eventually after that.
Its kind of a sucky way to do it but it worked for me

There's no easy receipt. Crunch them one by one. Prepare good (and simple!) reasons why the alternatives aren't acceptable for you.* Start with people you message daily. If someone only receives one message from one person once in a while, they won't stick for sure.

Try to migrate group chats, after some fraction of people agreed to try it out. FOMO will make the people to check the app.

If you have the most important people convinced, delete WhatsApp and Telegram and stick with it.

I moved from WhatsApp when Facebook bought it. I was able to move most of the people to Telegram (wouldn't choose that today anymore). Now, WhatsApp is just off the table. If someone ask me for "my WhatsApp" and isn't willing to use one of the options I offer (Matrix, Signal, Telegram, Threema), I use the inferior SMS, call or (extreamly rare) email. That's the deal, take it or leave it. I'm not willing to use a messaging app from one of the worst companies acting against many of my principles. If you can't respect this, we won't stay in contact. Period.

* Edit: collection of bad press as a reference can help.

A few years ago I got 5 of my millennial friends to move from FB Messenger to Telegram and it took some peer pressure from me and essentially one hangout where we were all together, and moved in one go. Telegram is not perfect but overall it's much better than being on FB messenger.

To be honest I can't say I blame you; It's absolutely impossible to get people to move away from a platform without a hard reason.

It's absurd how often people in general are simply afraid to simply read their screen and try new things on a device.

You may want to give this a quick read before using signal

https://dessalines.github.io/essays/why_not_signal.html

I personally haven't verified the claims on there but I've been using a personal instance of Matrix for a while now and it's been working great.

I know not everyone is willing to do this, but I just made myself unreachable elsewhere and many started using signal for that reason.

I deleted Facebook and Instagram and joined Signal. Not everybody transitioned (instead they wanted me to join WhatsUp lol), but it was a good decision in the long run.

Of course not everybody will transition as well, but let me tell you those who did (in my case) are those who want to be really in contact with you. For the rest I use SMS and E-mail like in the old days haha. You just have to hope that eventually they will join.

It's really hard decision that you have to think about (it took me some time) but I just say "F*** that" and just did it. Until I remove my Fb and Ig they think that I wasn't going to do it but well ^^.

I hope one day, that we have a viable protocol like email that will free everybody from vendor lock-in into messaging apps. Allowing us to chose our platform freely.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Matrix is there yet

We should be aware that signal might not be the promised lands. It was created by a CIA affiliate. It's also suspectible to National Security Letters from the U.S., requiring it to disclose information about its users.

A viable alternative might be France based Olvid. But I haven't done much research on them.

Sources:

• https://archive.ph/Lhe24
• https://yasha.substack.com/p/signal-is-a-government-op-85e
• https://olvid.io/en/