Oddly enough there aren’t that many forums about privacy online and the ones that exist are to narrow focused on some privacy tools.
I’ll list here all the ones I’ve found throughout the years:
PrivacyLx’s cafe
Of course we have our own community - this forum. Here you can discuss about anything privacy-related, bot in Portuguese and in English. We’re a Lisbon-based association dedicated to the defense of privacy and we also host local events. You can also join our chat or become a member (send @core or someone else on the forum about that)
Privacytool’s Forum
Born out of the privacy recommendation website Privacytools.io this is a community where mainly privacy tools are discussed, but there are also some other conversations about privacy.
You can also checkout their reddit.
Library Freedom Project
We’ve presented before here the library freedom. They’re a US-based organization which aims to train librarians on privacy to educate their patrons. The library freedom institute is their year-long initiative where they hold these trainings.
Their forum is for discussions surrounding those trainings. Although the trainings themselves are not open to the public, they are published online and I guess their forum might welcome new people.
PersonalData . io
This is a project around understanding how personal data flows is what’s the focus on this community. We’ve also mentioned this project before. Here’s a short text from their website:
We have all lost control over our personal data, yet we have no space where we can collectively reclaim it. We want to encourage collaborative dynamics between the general public and within civil society in all of its diversity (activists, researchers, educators, etc). These dynamics materialize around information about the personal data ecosystem, as well as cutting edge tools to respond to current practices and shape the future of the personal data economy.
https://forum.personaldata.io/
Reddit’s /r/Privacy
Reddit’s /r/Privacy is by far the biggest privacy community, but with size also comes a lot of misinformation. People who are new to the privacy world often end up here so you might find there lots of questions on basic stuff. I don’t advise you to go there for privacy advice, but It’s a good place to hear about privacy news.
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy
Reddit’s /r/Europrivacy
For europe-specific information you should check this subreddit. It’s a small community and not a few discussions take place. Regardless, there is a core group of people who post relevant Europe-specific privacy news. https://www.reddit.com/r/europrivacy
The Hated One’s subreddit
The Hated One is probably the only person making regularly videos about privacy. He has quite some following and some nice discussions happen in his subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/thehatedone/
Tildes . net
Although not privacy-specific, since it’s a freedom software forum created partly for privacy concerns, there are some privacy-related discussions going on there.
Cypherpunk’s mailinglist
This is the original privacy “forum”. During the “crypto wars” in the 1990s this has been one of the very first privacy communities. I don’t know if this is still active but it’s very insightful to read their archives and the thoughts they had at the time.
Throughout the years this community has kind of vanished, but it’s legacy remains. You can read from some of it’s members in this book or this one.
Project-specific communities
Communities that turn around a specific software product but may also include some discussions about privacy.
Torproject’s mailinglists
Tor is the anonymity network that many of us deeply care about. Here you can find some of their mailinglists.
Whonix forum
Whonix is an operating system that allows you to use tor more safely. It’s community has on the forum a dedicated a section for Tor an anonymity talks.
Securedrop
Securedrop is a project about making it safe for sources to contact journalists and while guaranteed the safety of the journalists while opening those leaks.
Enough community
Similarly to securedrop, Enough is a platform for journalists, sources and human right defenders to communicate securely and privately.
https://forum.enough.community/
Signal
Singal is the secure messaging platform that many of us depend on.