If I HAD to use one, which one would be better? While Whatsapp is owned by Facebook, they have end to end encryption for the messages, while the metadata is not. However, on Telegram, nothing is end to end encrypted unless you use a secret chat which most regular people are most likely not going to use. I have a feeling Whatsapp would be better but I wanted to hear your thoughts.
About two years ago my gf and I just informed everyone that we would be switching in a week. We gave a few reasons why and linked to a local news article of a recent data breach. I recommend making the switch right after a big scandal because it makes it a lot easier to understand for people that don’t follow FOSS or privacy news. We let them know how to contact us on Signal or through SMS. We were actually surprised by how many people installed Signal because of us, already had it installed or were actually already exclusively on Signal but we didn’t have them as a contact yet. I think in the end I have about half of my contacts migrated but that also counts for 90% of the people I care about talking to regularly.
I did pretty much the same thing. I have been wanted to migrate away since Facebook acquired it, then I joined the small exodus after their privacy policy changes around 2y ago. Likewise, it’s much easier to convince others to join Lemmy now, thanks to Reddit API controversy than it was at any other random time before.