On Writing The Privacy Dad Blog

16 Mar, 2025

I began this blog on 21 October 2022. I am a compulsive note-taker and had been keeping a simple diary with the odd title My Phone Journey in which I jotted down notes each time I tried a new tool, platform or device in my quest for better digital privacy.

The document was called that because my search began when I realised that I couldn't delete an unwanted app from my Android phone. That led to a bigger understanding that Android/Google and Apple have a total monopoly on mobile software and operating systems, and I began searching for alternatives.

I still have that old diary, and I've now written all those experiences up as articles on The Privacy Dad. This blog post covers the final note, which is about starting my blog. Here are some notes from that time.

Well, that’s it. I am typing this up because I am toying with the idea of creating a blog record of my ‘Phone Journey’ diary. It might be interesting to see where I have gotten from where I started, which is quite far.

I explored various options (including a Github blog!) and ended up choosing Bearblog. I already had some experience with it as a writing tool for my students in my high school lessons.

Right around this time, I was listening to an episode of The Surveillance Report and Nathan and Henry gave me my name:

The Privacy Dad

I got the idea for the title from Surveillance Report 106, where they discussed near the end the need for more privacy-related content, especially from specific groups like parents, and they suggested the title ‘The Privacy Dad’ as a freebie. I actually like that title, but not just to indicate that I am pursuing privacy as a parent, but more that I am leading a normal life, and that I am not a tech guy. (“The Privacy Guy” sounds much more like you’re presenting yourself as the go-to person for privacy, an expert, something I really don’t want.).

Once you discover the right angle and your focus as a writer, things really fall into place. Having a name and a concept (writing a diary rather than an advice column) made the next phase—planning—feel almost effortless.

I started writing ideas in note form on Standard Notes and got quite excited discovering just how many things I have done. Tonight, I have tried to compile all tech-related diary entries (starting with the ‘phone journey’ diary series) into one document, to which I will add the previous and this entry.

The next step was practical: I needed a domain name and a blogging platform.

In any case: it’s the Privacy Dad :) I have bought the domain name (someone else bought privacydad.com on the day the podcast aired!) and a Tutanota email [now called Tuta] address and got in touch with Herman from Bear Blog about connecting the domain name to a new blog, which he has responded to right away.

There was a lot of ready help from people like Herman. This type of support got me over the hurdle of writing my first article. Now I had to make people aware I was writing this blog.

Also came across the name Mastodon, which is an open source social networking site: https://joinmastodon.org/

I also started profiles on Reddit, Twitter/X and have occasionally presented a post on Hacker News, but this tends to be more effective when a reader does it. Bear has its own live stream of new Bear Blog posts, and I got quite lucky with a promo post that the moderators of r/privacy allowed, which gave me an important first experience of a boost in reads and interactions.

Words, format and structure

Writing is the best way to learn how to write. I had learned from my experiences as a musician on Instagram several years earlier that it is better to make and publish lots things quickly, rather than dwell endlessly on a single creation or post, so that's what I did. I wrote lots of articles—sometimes several posts per week—and learned as I wrote, edited, published and promoted.

I experimented with structure, and this is how I ended up including a Problems section, which describes the difficulties and frustrations I experienced with each new tool. I received positive feedback and decided to keep that section in.

I discovered I needed to keep a parallel system of notes for the blog itself, in order to track contacts, feedback, reminders of the blog's focus, and keep duplicates of the bodies of text.

I also began developing my own 'on privacy writing' style guide notes, which look something like this:

Notes page

I discovered Ghost Writer, learned how to use Markdown, how to host and link images on Pixelfed, and discovered Matt Cone's The Markdown Guide. I have a printed copy of it on my desk as I write this, opened to page 42, to help me remember how to insert an image with Markdown!

Problems

Writing takes time, and in the early days, being keen to write a lot of posts, I found I was writing late into the night, and going to work quite tired some mornings. Writing, and especially publishing, at night gives you an adrenaline boost, making it hard to get to sleep.

The whole process: note-taking, planning, drafting, writing, editing, more editing, publishing and promoting requires energy. It's work, but you don't get paid. I have had to remind myself to see it like that, in order not to end up feeling run down by my own passion project.

Once you've written something, it's natural to want to get it out to potential readers right away. But the process of publishing has its own steps and may take another hour, or more. It was sometimes difficult to be patient and prioritise sleep and publish the next day.

Writing under a pseudonym proved tricky at times. You have to be consistent. I received some criticism for using the gender neutral 'they/them' when writing about my kids, but I wanted to anonymise colleagues, friends and family members where possible. (On a side note, I did discover that this singular use of 'they' to refer to an unknown person dates back to the 15th century in English, so the critics were wrong!¹)

There are so many bloggers out there; subreddit page moderators must be warding us off like flies. It's hard to get the article you're so proud of noticed. Sometimes you get lucky, or you can build a rapport with certain key figures.

This last one is not really a problem, but I discovered writing is over 50% editing. The first drafts are usually written quickly, but editing takes twice as long. When your goal is to be clear, editing can be a ruthless process.

Conclusions

I have slowed down publication frequency in the past year. I used to write and publish two or three articles per week, but now I aim to write one a month. Ironically, the blog has seen an increase in visitors via the Google search engine in the last year, and so I don't have to fight so hard to be noticed anymore.

I have also, and with this post in particular, come to a kind of natural milestone with the blog, which is to write about the moment I began The Privacy Dad.

It has been a rewarding journey, and I hope to keep writing articles and interacting with readers and the great digital privacy teachers and gurus out there. The urgency of online privacy is only going to increase with time. I am therefore glad to see many newcomers asking the same questions I began asking years ago, when I discovered that Google would not let me delete an app I didn't want on my phone.