I have convinced 2 people so far.(
I think it's great just to make good examples of ourselves by publicly
rejecting these big, centralized services -- especially services that are
known to comply with massive state surveillance of users. It's hard to
convince others (I can't even convince my own family to stop using Facebook),
but at very least we seed an idea in their minds, and they'll start to think
about why we're not participating.
I used Facebook for several years. Even after I read RMS's notes about
Facebook, I remained a user for at least another year, but the idea of
leaving was seeded. It just took some time for the idea to grow before I
finally decided it was wrong for me to participate. During the time I was on
Facebook, I hadn't just given up my own privacy, I had betrayed the privacy
of others by posting their pictures and labeling them. I had helped train
Facebook's face recognition system.
