Hi,
One small but useful thing that people can do to help Tor's image is to make a comment at the bottom of articles about Tor (especially negative ones). I'm not trying to add more work to people's TODO lists, but if you do wonder if it's helpful to comment, the answer is Yes, it's helpful.
This is advice you could share with friends who want to help Tor--anyone can use it. I wouldn't necessarily post it to a list besides this one, because it's advice about strategy.
As an example, I'm not loving this Christian Science Monitor Article (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Passcode/2016/0408/Tor-aims-to-grow-amid-nati...), which was then re-posted on Drudge.com. We don't want to generate lots of interest or controversy on Drudge.com, or Matt Drudge will start posting more negative articles about us--which he has mostly stayed away from over the years (interesting). But a couple positive comments would be useful.
As a general rule, it's better to post the comment right after the article ends, or close to that, so you know more people see it (my bad this time).
Our strategy here is to educate people, rally our supporters, and convert people who are neutral or unknowledgeable about Tor into supporters.
Anyway, as an example for a general or conservative audience, here's what I posted at the end of the article on drudge.com--it focuses on researching health information and keeping the Man out of your business:
"Tor is used by people who don't want either the government or companies like Google to know that they are trying to research sensitive health information--like about breast cancer--or about politics--or anything that they think is no one's business but theirs. It's super safe and private to use--that's the point. It's developed by a nonprofit organization and you can download it for free on torproject.org."
Lots of people understand wanting to research breast cancer or birth control or drug treatment centers without having Google or your government spying on you. So those are good starting points. Health information, especially, resonates with older people and/or conservative people.
Here are some basic talking points about Tor for comments after articles: Use a few; you don't have to use all of them.
1. We help human rights activists in countries like China hop over the Great Fire Wall (LOTS of people care about this from across the political spectrum in many countries) 2. We help people research health information privately (ditto) 3. We support the right to read and write freely 4. We support the right to privacy 5. We are safe to use--safer than what they are using now; very safe. 6. I often contrast our browser with onion services for people who have never used Tor by saying:
With a web browser you are like a fish swimming in the ocean visiting different places. If you use the Tor browser, you are an anonymous fish. A web site or service you visit is like a coral reef. When the coral reef is also anonymous, that's an onion service. After people understand the difference between the fish and the coral reef, you can get into finer distinctions (Facebook, NAT punching, etc.). But fish vs. coral reef is a good start.
7. Tor is like hanging curtains on your window.
Never get in to a flame war--one comment per person is fine. Your temperature should be cool, friendly, and educational--not angry. If you can't keep the temperature cool, it's good to skip doing this particular thing. (I'll be thinking of things you can do when you are mad.)
Commenting is also a good thing to do on reddit, slash/dot, etc. You can use more sophisticated talking points for these audiences.
It seems like a small thing but it really does help; it adds up--we want to rally and educate potential supporters, like the people on reddit, and we want to nicely educate people who read magazines like PC Magazine or CIO Magazine who might not know much about Tor.
The key is to be the nice, reasonable person--I try to channel Roger :)
Cheers,
-Katie
A list of places that could often use Tor-friendly comments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tor https://www.reddit.com/r/onions/ https://slashdot.org/tag/tor
What else should be on this list?