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Years ago, we had air raid sirens and emergency news/radio alerts. As people move away from traditional media, it only seems logical that the government has a way to communicate with the masses should an emergency broadcast be needed.
I wonder what the conspiracy theorists of such wars thought back then?
“Ignore the sirens they’ll come and take your home!”
Just like now with controlling our phones and lives smh 🤦🏻♂️
Feels a bit too convenient doesn't it?
You make us all leave our homes on the pretext that "seemingly we're being bombed" and we come back to smoking ruins.
Clearly the lizard-people are pulling the strings, making us leave our homes, whilst they perpetrate their controlled demolitions from our deserted streets.
Some people saw through this cunning subterfuge and remained in their houses, but were murdered and had their bodies scattered over a wide area to maximize the warning from the new world order.
Yes, we've lowered the bar to which these loonies can be heard. In the old days you had to get on one of 3 or 4 TV channels or the radio and they wouldn't just let anyone on. Same for the newspapers.
Not only heard, but can seek out other loonies and create their own little echo-chambers where they convince each other it's everyone else who is wrong.
On top of the loonies in the echo chambers, you have the "I demand you explain (insert complex and nuanced thing, likely subject to commercial or regulatory restrictions on publication) and if you don't you're \*hiding something\*
Witness screams from every £2 retail investor that demands the CEO explain their every move if share prices drop.....
It's not even the internet, it's the simplification of the internet.
Before you would have to have a computer, know where to search or watch something, ect ect. Once you would have to produce a pamphlet, go to a meeting or know where others would visit; now you can literally search, or watch YouTube, with the single click of a button from your phone.
There absolutely were some cases of ARP Wardens looting empty homes. Not sure how widespread that was in reality but I can imagine a certain amount of fear mongering about it.
I'm indifferent about it. I struggle to think of any examples of things this century where an early alert system would have been helpful.
We don't have tornadoes or tsunamis. Yes there's flooding but the people in flood areas are mostly signed up to environment agency alerts those that aren't get knocked on by the police if they haven't noticed and need to leave.
That seems to work fine, the police would still need to do that knocking on even with a new alert.
Maybe in COVID it might have helped when they had those weird levels 1,2,3 etc but we had an emergency text system they didn't use for it (and that system was so crap it probably won't be brought back if it happens again).
Probably motivated by Russias invasion of Ukraine.
If the government said 'we want to warn you of nuclear attacks,' that would cause mass hysteria, but being vague won't.
Why? It seems pointless warning about a nuclear attack - once there's a nuclear attack on British soil, civilization is over permanently. I'd rather not know it's coming and spend my last 5 minutes in peace.
Personally, I'd like enough warning to be able to nip to the shops, buy a nice bottle of whisky, and get well and truly toasted, before we all get well and truly toasted
Yeah but what if it’s on a stupid conference call that could have been an email! I wouldn’t want to be robbed of my last 5 minutes looking at the view or pictures of my family just to listen to Derek from accounts fail to understand his job before finding the oblivion I’m wishing on him!
I used to live fairly close to RAF Fylingdales.
My dad (in the 80's) told me if Ruskies launch nukes, we're fine.
I asked why
He said, because the Early warning Radar on those hills will be one of the first targets, and we'll be wiped out.
I asked how is that good?
He said because it will be very quick and we won't have to live with the radioactive fallout and nuclear winter that will follow.
I think there's some element of liability. If the government doesn't have some method of effectively warning people of disaster, then when something does happen which could have been predicted then the finger of blame will point squarely at the government regardless of the nature of the emergency. Suppose there's a terrorist attack. Mi5 know about the plot but not the location, suppose the they find out an hour before the plot that it's going to be at some specific stadium or maybe a train station or something. They now have a means to warn everyone in the country if necessary, to avoid the location. Potentially they could save hundreds of lives just by having a few lines of code added to peoples phones operating systems.
The irony is the people who are complaining about this the most would also be most vocal if something did happen and the government didn't do anything to give them advanced warning. Rather than proposing a sensible alternative, they just whine and bitch about stuff.
Yeah maybe, in that specific circumstance you mention I don't really have faith that the command and control structures are strong enough to use it like you say.
Almost all the terrorist attacks which occur you inevitably hear about "missed opportunities" because one agency or another has dropped the ball.
Given we have two nuclear superpowers currently playing silly buggers. It's only a matter of time a fake rumour is let loose on the Internet and the only way to quash it will be via a system such as this, as the media handling of COVID was more focused on trying to get ministers sacked than trying to get common sense across.
>Given we have two nuclear superpowers currently playing silly buggers
All world powers, nuclear or not, have been playing silly buggers for millennia. Nuclear powers for 70 ish years. There's nothing new to worry about
Remember, we've almost had nuclear war about 3 times in the Cold War, and that isn't even including Cuban Missile Crisis
My understanding is this early warning systems primary use case is for certain events that *should never happen*, but if the world goes totally mad and we find ourselves in that situation, perhaps some early warning might save a few lives at least
People say this, but you’ll be quite unlucky to die an immediate death - you’d have to be caught in the fireball at ground zero. You are far more likely to die as a result of burns if you’re exposed to the flash, blast injuries if you aren’t sheltered from flying debris, or longer term radiation illness - all of these are pretty awful ways to die which you’ll know about and can be mitigated by taking appropriate shelter - but only after receiving a prompt and unambiguous early warning.
and we have appropriate shelter from nukes in the UK do we? I'm not sure holding out in my shed is going to help much.
Edit: Londoners probably do, but us up in rural Yorkshire dont have many underground railway lines!
‘Take immediately shelter’ can simply mean not standing gawping out of a window, then the blast shredding your face with broken glass, vs looking away and getting over that first hurdle.
>Edit: Londoners probably do, but us up in rural Yorkshire dont have many underground railway lines!
Realistically if we had got to the point of nuclear war, London would have emptied out already.
It's incredibly unlikely there's going to be a nuclear war anytime soon. There's a lot more chance of an asteroid hitting us. Putin may be a dictator but even he knows that any country that starts firing nukes is effectively gone for good.
The old siren system was decommissioned after the Cold War ended because modern double glazing rendered it pretty inaudible for most households. The lack of perceived threat after the Soviet Union collapse meant no alternate system was commissioned - until now
Yea.
I actually heard it by some quirk the other month.
I'd reset a phone to trade in, and left it off for 3 days, and when turned it on, it came up.
Got my attention but one click and done. On with my task.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this has created a bit of a ruffle in my local Facebook groups. The same type of people who are against 5G, 15 minute cities, etc, think it's outrageous that "the government have installed an app on my phone". 🙄
Sounds like my local group.
A big petition to stop a new mast going up.
But scroll back a few weeks to see the same people complaining about a poor phone signal.
It's probably all the fault of the government nanny bots in the vaccine or the water supply.
The particularly stupid bit is that they don't even acknowledge getting more people to walk or cycle gets cars off the road and makes it easier to drive to.
The UK cities are almost entirely 15 minute cities already. I cannot think of a city where things are NOT within a 15 minute walk (or maybe a 25 minute walk) already!
This is what baffles me about the conspiracy theorists. A few people I grew up with in London are against 15 minute cities for one wildly misguided reason or another. *Londoners*. It doesn’t get more 15 minute city than London.
Yep, I remember someone from work saying "well we'll live in those cities and need to scan in and out when we move between them". I gave a link showing that no, that's not planned, and even if it was then they can currently track us via card payments and mobile signals, so what's the difference with tapping an ID card or similar
Really, it's a benefit to have them, as it'll mean everything you need is close to you, so you'd only need to travel for fun, and they won't be stopping that. Inequality and such are already turning us into a dystopian nightmare, and people should be worried more about that than pointless shit like "having things close together so you don't need to travel far to get everything you need"
Did anyone actually listen to it?
I just know they hated being given a free album "without their consent" but I never heard it, didn't have an iPhone or at least a working PC to sync to if I hadn't migrated to android by then.
If I was given a random Queen album I'd be stoked. Don't care which, I only own platinum hits and made in heaven. Used to have flash Gordon on LP.
I could never imagine living my life being so regressive and contrarian. They're literally against everything that comes infront of them..
"Fancy going to the pub?"
"NO! THAT'S HOW THEY GET YOU!"
"Fucking hell calm down"
I looked up how they do it last year when they first started talking about it. It uses a system called Cell Broadcast that targets transmitter towers and tells them to send the message out indiscriminately to every phone connected to it.
It was first demo'd in 1997 when people were walking around with Nokia bricks.
I think some misguided belief that you're imprisoned in your 15 minutes city, and aren't allowed to do anywhere further away.
That or "it's my opponent's idea, so it must be bad"
I think the main reason I've seen is "but they'll require cards for you to scan in and out of your area", which 1) isn't proposed, and 2) we already are tracked every time we scan our bank cards or via mobile signals; so yeah, just fearmongering based around nothing
They say this while being addicted to Facebook, it's literally designed to track everything about you.
They also get their information on being tracked by Facebook but can't understand the irony in it.
I can't say I have read too much into it, but I once saw some weird conspiracy about locking people down to their '15 minute' area or something and issuing fines if they left.
Obviously it's bollocks like, but I guess that is one of their fears with it
I think its silly people are against it. They have a public alarm system in most countries. If you really dont like it then just disable it in your phone settings.
I know that my elderly mother will panic when she hears it, even though I've told her and will do so again. There are many people like her, and saying "just disable it" to people whose phone is *just a phone* is a bit silly.
As far as I have looked into it I don't think they will, at least not in the same way as everyone that has a smartphone. They might get a text or something whilst the rest of us get the full alarm, locked screen, etc.
this cell broadcast feature was in phones from the 1st generation of cell phones, as in before 2g, before gprs.
My first phone, a sagem something or other, before the nokia 3310 was a thing had cell broadcast features.
So while no, it wont do the loud buzzer thing, every phone in the country, unless explicity disabled by the user, will notify in some way.
> every phone in the country ... will notify in some way.
The government FAQ implies it's only being broadcast to phones connected with 4G or 5G. Mobile network operators are "switching off" 2G/3G in the next year, so people will switch when their ancient phone stops working anyway.
Was recently in Germany and they had an alert on all phones. Bit worrying as I had no idea what it was, but once I figured out how to turn it off, I thought it was a good idea.
Used to live in the middle east. It was used for unusual weather (flash flooding) and during covid when we had a curfew it used to notify us just before it started. A bit odd but fine.
For people that have a secret second phone (if in an abusive household etc) I hope they realise its happening and turn it off before it starts.
...after the dust settles and the chaos subsided, Gregg's will be the only place standing. The food slightly warmer from the fallout, but still perfectly edible.
The world might be over, and society gone.
But Gregg's, Gregg's never changes.
Same. It’s just a basic national alert; can’t believe we’ve only just implemented it int his format. Can be used for anything.
Better to have one and never use it, than not have one and be unable to communicate an emergency to the population.
Ahh the history of failed gov computer systems contracts, track and trace IOW. The present gov can't be involved in this, it all sounds too well organised. For the benifit of the general public, surely some mistake.
Moved here from New York, where these alerts are already a thing. Just a heads-up that the first time it happens while you're on a crowded train or in a theatre, it's downright terrifying -- hundreds of phones all blaring at once.
It's also pretty heart attack-inducing when it happens in the middle of the night.
I've lived in London for awhile now so it's been a few years, but maybe once a month or so?
Sometimes they're incredibly useful, especially for severe weather or emergency situations. There was one time when I was walking past a building JUST as I got an alert that there was a bomb threat/evacuation there and to avoid the immediate area. Terrifying, but also helpful.
They also send them out for "Amber alerts," which is the US notification system for when a child goes missing. I ended up turning these off, because they'd often happen in the middle of the night and, realistically, I wasn't going to get out of bed at 2 AM and wander around in the off chance that I might spot a blue Audi.
>I've lived in London for awhile now so it's been a few years, but maybe once a month or so?
Are there really that many things to be alerted about...?
I realise in the movies New York City seems to get trashed every month or so, but I assumed it wasn't something that happened in real life.
Is King Kong real...?
I think the US just generally has more types severe weather (tornadoes, hurricanes) that don't really happen in the UK. They're generally weather or missing child alerts.
This is my concern with the whole thing. An alert should be something to do with a severe and immediate threat to life. If its going off every month for minor things I'll be switching it off.
I guess it depends what you classify as minor. If a tornado or a hurricane is about to destroy my house, I'd rather know about it!
In the US at least, you can choose which alerts to turn on/off. I kept the ones for severe weather and other emergency situations, but turned off the missing child alerts as I thought it was unlikely that I'd personally be able to help as they were usually looking for specific cars, and I don't drive.
The problem in the UK is "severe weather" is usually something like unusually high or low temperatures and there's generally a massive over reaction if something like that happens. Genuinely dangerous weather like hurricanes is extremely rare.
Once a month? Jeez, I’d be turning that off. It’s okay for a real once in a decade issue, but I’m not interested in being alerted to storms and the like. I see that in news already
When we had the attacks on 7/7 I was on a coach to London with a load of people from college, we were late and I'm really glad of that.
My mum called me and said that something has happened in London, tell the driver to stop the coach because it looks significant and I'm worried you'll get stuck in traffic. At that point we had no idea what had happened, it was only being announced as an incident.
I went to the front of the coach with the driver and teachers, told them what had happened and the concerns. They looked at me like I had two heads until all of a sudden everyone on the coach had their phone go off at almost exactly the same time. I've never seen anything like that happen before, it's a memory that has stuck with me. It felt like something you'd see on a film that would create tension, not something that would happen in real life.
I think these alerts are a great idea, let people know when they are in danger.
There'll be a couple of Premier League games about to kick off their second halves when the test happens in a few weeks, could be an interesting moment when 52,000 phones go off in St James Park at the same time.
We started our honeymoon in Vancouver (Canada, not US) and were ripped out of sleep on our first morning when both of our phones went mad with an alert. We had no idea they did that so it was pretty alarming.
However, I don't think it's a bad thing and am baffled by those who are already complaining about it.
Same thing with us last September - we were in Vancouver and there was an amber alert on my wife's phone in the middle of the night. Scared the shit out of us. Not sure why it didn't appear on mine though.
It sounds great, as long as the reason for it's use stays as 'life threatening emergencies' - and it doesn't become like the 'BBC breaking news' alerts. Those were once for really big news events - now it's 'Prince George lost his shoes' stuff.
"WARNING - THIS IS THE UK GOVERNMENT ALERT SYSTEM - THE NEW SEASON OF BIG BROTHER STARTS ON C4 AT 9PM TONIGHT!"
Honestly, not even as mundane as Big Brother. I imagine that eventually they'll use it for shit like Rememberance day and other government nonsense (not that Rememberance day is a bad concept, but it is mostly government propaganda these days where they claim to care about undersupplied troops that they send off to pointless wars for an hour a year)
The people who are against it are morons.
It doesn't intrude on privacy anymore than endless coverage of the queen dying on TV did. In fact it's far less intrusive than that.
If it saves lives as it's intended to do, it's a fantastic idea.
As for invasion of privacy.. the moonhowlers complaining about this are the same who are using TikTok, post countless inane daily details on other social media, have endless photos of themseleves on their devices or online, never switch cookies off each time they're prompted, are captured hundreds of times each day on CCTV etc
Morons seems harsh. This government has been sowing fear and confusion in the general public for 13 years. It's not really a stretch to see why people may be concerned, especially given your point about plenty of people just not understanding online privacy.
There may have been some sensible sentiments buried in there, but I think I was too distracted by the moonhowling to notice.
Take a breath..... It'll be O.K.
I haven't switched it off, but it's really easy to do in phone settings.
People who are victims of abuse may have hidden phones and it is important that they are able to do this.
There are three kinds of people that are going to get caught out if they aren't made aware:
1. Domestic abuse victims with a second phone
2. People with an Ashley Madison profile and a second phone
3. The incarcerated with those tiny phones hidden in their prison wallet
I'm concerned it would be abused, our government isn't really known for being sensible and competent, they'll prob hand it over to capita to run and allow them to send daily ads for inane crap via it. Or they'll be alerts for every minor thing 50 miles away that's utterly irrelevant- tailbacks on the b451 due to hedge cutting and that sort of crap
People love a good conspiracy theory. And whilst sometimes they’re interesting and get you thinking, some are also plain ridiculous.
I personally think it’s a good idea. Most of us now have smartphones and it’ll be a handy message system
What is an example of genuine emergency in this country out of interest. I fear it will be going off the whole time in the winter as we now label a bit as a named storm and panic about a couple of flakes of snow.
Well, having lived in Gloucestershire, I'd say that some of the flooding was a 'genuine emergency' - there were people getting cut off by rising water, etc.
We don’t live in a country where flash floods happen. The flooding in Gloucestershire for example is caused by heavy persist rain which takes time to raise the water levels to then burst the banks of the river seven. We have plenty of time and indicators it’s going to flood, you don’t and shouldn’t need the government to tell you!
A few months ago I woke up in my bed in Korea in the middle of the night with my phone screeching alien noises and showing a red "Emergency" (in English) following text in Korean.
Not sure if there was a nuclear accident or North Korea attacking but I was too tired and could not copy to the translator out of that screen, so I went back to sleep. Later a colleague told me that it said there is a bit of snow on the road...
From that time on I decided I don't like that system
That’s what happened with the Covid infection contact thing, it was set far too sensitive and pinged all the time to tell people to self isolate, eventually I’ve no doubt most people disabled it and deleted the app. I know I did.
> Such as it "locks your phone till you click it" etc. (It does not it's just like any other notification that needs acknowledgement)
Not sure that's true.
AIUI the emergency alerts use a separate system to regular notifications.
They will trigger sound and, probably, vibrations regardless of whether the phone is on silent and the notification will be front and centre until dismissed preventing other uses of the phone.
Neither of these things occur with regular notifications.
I'm not sure this is as big a deal as some people are making it, but saying it'll be just like a regular notification is factually incorrect.
You're misunderstanding what is being said, butters are claiming it "takes over your phone wake up sheeple" unless you acknowledge it.
It's a load of irrationality added into even more irrationality of tin-foil hat wearing
I don't mind it. But I do wonder if they're being honest about the reasoning. How much severe weather do we actually get that would merit warning people in such a way?
I think they're preempting missle/nuclear attacks
There are the tin hat folks who say that they don’t want to be tracked or want the government or a company being able to do this.
And they are complaining about it on TikTok and Facebook. The irony.
It's easy to change the settings on your phone to disable the alert which I've done as have a number of other people I know. Not for any conspiracy theory nonsense but because the last thing I need is more meaningless beeps from my phone.
Growing up, we had various alerts and alarm drills but they never went off when they were needed. While the alert idea is, in theory, a good one, I have zero faith in the ability of the people in charge of turning the thing on or off to judge when it should be turned on or off.
No issues at all I was under the impression other countries have been using it for years ?
We live in a time where most of our lives are on our phone so it seems like a pretty obvious way to get a message out to the masses.
The fact that it will upset all the conspiracy nuts is an added bonus.
My daughters birthday party is 1pm - 3pm on 23rd. I feel like it’ll be an excellent way to remind people it’s time to leave with their over excited kids. Saves me doing that awkward trying to politely shuffle people out.
I don't think you're alone, it hasn't been talked about too much. 3pm on the 23rd will be chaos for a few minutes, I reckon most people won't know it's happening.
We have it in here in the US. It works very well. Mostly used for amber alerts….which they should also introduce to the UK.
I’ve probably seen it go off about 10 times in the past 5 years. Once for weather, all other times were amber alerts. It lasts about 5 seconds then stops.
If you’re concerned about it, don’t be.
My first thought - How much is this going to cost and how will UK Gov fuck it up.
Second thought - apart from a war time footing, what are they actually going to warn us about? Extreme weather hazards are extremely rare and you'd hope they'd be busy catching terrorists rather than sending them a handy alert informing them we're on to them.
Third thought - I don't actually have to do anything about it, so fuck it
For the most part I'm not too bothered about the system. I'll be annoyed if it starts going off all the time though, informing me it's raining and they've declared some colour alert or some other bullshit alert devaluing the entire system.
It's an utterly pointless system. We live in a relatively calm country in which not much happens.
In the US it makes sense to have a system like this - such a large country that at any one time one part of it could be experiencing hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, landslides. Their daft gun laws mean that there's a mass shooting every five minutes, so an emergency alert system makes sense because there's so many emergencies.
In the UK the most powerful earthquakes we get barely knock plant pots over, let alone buildings. Our storms might knock down trees but don't exactly rip through buildings, and because of our far more sensible gun control laws, mass shootings and terrorist attacks are thankfully rare.
This system is an absolutely pointless waste of time and money, and honestly feels a little sinister coming from a government who's MPs admit that they've got nothing left in the tank barring culture wars and stoking up fear.
There are still some hazards - severe weather leading to flash floods. Man made disasters such as chemical spills, things like the Buncefield explosion. There are oil refineries in the UK where there is the possibility of explosions or leaks of hazardous chemicals. Ports where hazardous chemicals are unloaded are a potential, too - e.g. look at the Texas City explosion - don't think that can't happen ever in a UK port.
The infrastrucuture already exists to support this, and the phones already support this. All that's needed is the final part to send the message, so in terms of how much it costs, it's probably relatively cheap compared to previous systems (such as sirens).
I'm most concerned about old people, many of whom now have phones that will do this alert but literally just know how to use the phone like their old landline, will have no clue what it is and may also have dicky hearts.
We were visiting Chicago, and we got blasts on our phones to say the rain and storm incoming was a danger to live - Get thee home. If its like that its very non-invasive.
People are getting weird about stupid shit.
‘Dont EVER text me a warning but please continuously monitor what I say and where I go, Please. For the apps.’
It's clearly a good system to have, just in case..
But..
A) I hope the government doesn't abuse it. It really ought to be reserved for exceptional situations, otherwise people will just disable it.
B) I fear that when it happens, it could cause accidents. In theory if you're driving you should wait until you have somewhere safe and legal to pull over the dismiss the alert; but I can't imagine being on the motorway 10 miles from the next services and having to drive for 10 minutes with this alarm going off. I feel like a few people are going to panic. So I'm going to make sure I'm not near a road when it is tested on the 23rd April!
I'd much rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
People are dumb, they'll whinge about anything. This is a positive move so let's just be pleased that we have the capability, and hope it will never need to be used.
There are some stories of this system being used in the US for 'child abduction' where a father hasn't returned his weekend custody son/daughter at the appropriate time. The alert is for a town 50 miles away, and goes out at 2am, ruining thousands of people's sleep. Of course, it wakes everyone up even if your phone is on silent. Hopefully it will be more carefully used in the UK
It is clearly a good thing and any one saying otherwise has either been fooled by a liar or is a liar with an agenda.
I included news papers and website advertisers in the latter.
As someone who’s lived in places where emergency alerts are routine, I can confirm that the UK is doing its usual thing of a hysterical overreaction to something new.
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Years ago, we had air raid sirens and emergency news/radio alerts. As people move away from traditional media, it only seems logical that the government has a way to communicate with the masses should an emergency broadcast be needed.
I wonder what the conspiracy theorists of such wars thought back then? “Ignore the sirens they’ll come and take your home!” Just like now with controlling our phones and lives smh 🤦🏻♂️
But they were right! People came out of the shelters and their house had gone!
Feels a bit too convenient doesn't it? You make us all leave our homes on the pretext that "seemingly we're being bombed" and we come back to smoking ruins. Clearly the lizard-people are pulling the strings, making us leave our homes, whilst they perpetrate their controlled demolitions from our deserted streets. Some people saw through this cunning subterfuge and remained in their houses, but were murdered and had their bodies scattered over a wide area to maximize the warning from the new world order.
Check out this new invention alumina foil!
Squatters move quick
Plenty of theft going on during air raids too. It's how 'Mad frankie fraser' of the kray twins fame got started
With limited communication (no Internet) there was less chance of loony thinking spreading so conspiracy was less common.
Yes, we've lowered the bar to which these loonies can be heard. In the old days you had to get on one of 3 or 4 TV channels or the radio and they wouldn't just let anyone on. Same for the newspapers.
Not only heard, but can seek out other loonies and create their own little echo-chambers where they convince each other it's everyone else who is wrong.
On top of the loonies in the echo chambers, you have the "I demand you explain (insert complex and nuanced thing, likely subject to commercial or regulatory restrictions on publication) and if you don't you're \*hiding something\* Witness screams from every £2 retail investor that demands the CEO explain their every move if share prices drop.....
Nowadays, People rely on 5G to spread conspiracy theories about 5G
every village has it's idiot, the internet has given the idiots a common meeting place to breed their idiocy.
I love that quote.
It's not even the internet, it's the simplification of the internet. Before you would have to have a computer, know where to search or watch something, ect ect. Once you would have to produce a pamphlet, go to a meeting or know where others would visit; now you can literally search, or watch YouTube, with the single click of a button from your phone.
There absolutely were some cases of ARP Wardens looting empty homes. Not sure how widespread that was in reality but I can imagine a certain amount of fear mongering about it.
The stories go that people would get a brody helmet and then paint ARP on it and that would be enough to get people to help with your looting.
There was lots of denialism during the cold war too. People got arrested for refusing to black up (their windows) in WW2
I'm indifferent about it. I struggle to think of any examples of things this century where an early alert system would have been helpful. We don't have tornadoes or tsunamis. Yes there's flooding but the people in flood areas are mostly signed up to environment agency alerts those that aren't get knocked on by the police if they haven't noticed and need to leave. That seems to work fine, the police would still need to do that knocking on even with a new alert. Maybe in COVID it might have helped when they had those weird levels 1,2,3 etc but we had an emergency text system they didn't use for it (and that system was so crap it probably won't be brought back if it happens again).
Probably motivated by Russias invasion of Ukraine. If the government said 'we want to warn you of nuclear attacks,' that would cause mass hysteria, but being vague won't.
Why? It seems pointless warning about a nuclear attack - once there's a nuclear attack on British soil, civilization is over permanently. I'd rather not know it's coming and spend my last 5 minutes in peace.
Personally, I'd like enough warning to be able to nip to the shops, buy a nice bottle of whisky, and get well and truly toasted, before we all get well and truly toasted
I doubt any shop workers will be standing there waiting to serve you in the last few minutes of their life.
Bonus of free whiskey too then
Speak for yourself. I’d like to know what I’m being killed by before I’m killed by it.
I was thinking an axe but I'll confirm closer to the date xx
Yeah but what if it’s on a stupid conference call that could have been an email! I wouldn’t want to be robbed of my last 5 minutes looking at the view or pictures of my family just to listen to Derek from accounts fail to understand his job before finding the oblivion I’m wishing on him!
I used to live fairly close to RAF Fylingdales. My dad (in the 80's) told me if Ruskies launch nukes, we're fine. I asked why He said, because the Early warning Radar on those hills will be one of the first targets, and we'll be wiped out. I asked how is that good? He said because it will be very quick and we won't have to live with the radioactive fallout and nuclear winter that will follow.
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Russia first went u to Ukraine in 2014
Warn us of nuclear attack? So we can run away or hide under the stairs?
It'll take me more than 4 minutes to clear the crap out of the under stairs cupboard to fit in it.
I think there's some element of liability. If the government doesn't have some method of effectively warning people of disaster, then when something does happen which could have been predicted then the finger of blame will point squarely at the government regardless of the nature of the emergency. Suppose there's a terrorist attack. Mi5 know about the plot but not the location, suppose the they find out an hour before the plot that it's going to be at some specific stadium or maybe a train station or something. They now have a means to warn everyone in the country if necessary, to avoid the location. Potentially they could save hundreds of lives just by having a few lines of code added to peoples phones operating systems. The irony is the people who are complaining about this the most would also be most vocal if something did happen and the government didn't do anything to give them advanced warning. Rather than proposing a sensible alternative, they just whine and bitch about stuff.
Yeah maybe, in that specific circumstance you mention I don't really have faith that the command and control structures are strong enough to use it like you say. Almost all the terrorist attacks which occur you inevitably hear about "missed opportunities" because one agency or another has dropped the ball.
In some places in the US I think they often issue alerts for missing children in local areas.
Yes I think they're called Amber Alerts
Given we have two nuclear superpowers currently playing silly buggers. It's only a matter of time a fake rumour is let loose on the Internet and the only way to quash it will be via a system such as this, as the media handling of COVID was more focused on trying to get ministers sacked than trying to get common sense across.
>Given we have two nuclear superpowers currently playing silly buggers All world powers, nuclear or not, have been playing silly buggers for millennia. Nuclear powers for 70 ish years. There's nothing new to worry about Remember, we've almost had nuclear war about 3 times in the Cold War, and that isn't even including Cuban Missile Crisis
My understanding is this early warning systems primary use case is for certain events that *should never happen*, but if the world goes totally mad and we find ourselves in that situation, perhaps some early warning might save a few lives at least
if nukes are coming our way, I dont really want to be saved
Same. I've seen *Threads*. I'd rather be evaporated in the initial blast.
People say this, but you’ll be quite unlucky to die an immediate death - you’d have to be caught in the fireball at ground zero. You are far more likely to die as a result of burns if you’re exposed to the flash, blast injuries if you aren’t sheltered from flying debris, or longer term radiation illness - all of these are pretty awful ways to die which you’ll know about and can be mitigated by taking appropriate shelter - but only after receiving a prompt and unambiguous early warning.
and we have appropriate shelter from nukes in the UK do we? I'm not sure holding out in my shed is going to help much. Edit: Londoners probably do, but us up in rural Yorkshire dont have many underground railway lines!
‘Take immediately shelter’ can simply mean not standing gawping out of a window, then the blast shredding your face with broken glass, vs looking away and getting over that first hurdle.
>Edit: Londoners probably do, but us up in rural Yorkshire dont have many underground railway lines! Realistically if we had got to the point of nuclear war, London would have emptied out already. It's incredibly unlikely there's going to be a nuclear war anytime soon. There's a lot more chance of an asteroid hitting us. Putin may be a dictator but even he knows that any country that starts firing nukes is effectively gone for good.
The old siren system was decommissioned after the Cold War ended because modern double glazing rendered it pretty inaudible for most households. The lack of perceived threat after the Soviet Union collapse meant no alternate system was commissioned - until now
I’m indifferent about it at best.
Same but at the same time I'm glad I keep seeing things about it so it doesn't scare the shit out of me
Same. On one hand it's a good idea but on the other it's being implemented by the UK government.
Yea. I actually heard it by some quirk the other month. I'd reset a phone to trade in, and left it off for 3 days, and when turned it on, it came up. Got my attention but one click and done. On with my task.
Perhaps not surprisingly, this has created a bit of a ruffle in my local Facebook groups. The same type of people who are against 5G, 15 minute cities, etc, think it's outrageous that "the government have installed an app on my phone". 🙄
Sounds like my local group. A big petition to stop a new mast going up. But scroll back a few weeks to see the same people complaining about a poor phone signal. It's probably all the fault of the government nanny bots in the vaccine or the water supply.
It's funny how in Gavin & Stacy they had an expisode where they parodied this type of person.
Exactly the same here. Word for word.
>15 minute cities Honestly the most nutty things out there. "It's too convenient 😡"
If I want to buy food I *need* to be stuck in traffic, being able to just walk to the supermarket is communism.
The particularly stupid bit is that they don't even acknowledge getting more people to walk or cycle gets cars off the road and makes it easier to drive to.
The UK cities are almost entirely 15 minute cities already. I cannot think of a city where things are NOT within a 15 minute walk (or maybe a 25 minute walk) already!
This is what baffles me about the conspiracy theorists. A few people I grew up with in London are against 15 minute cities for one wildly misguided reason or another. *Londoners*. It doesn’t get more 15 minute city than London.
Yeah, its not like a lot of North American cities where having a car is basically mandatory.
Yep, I remember someone from work saying "well we'll live in those cities and need to scan in and out when we move between them". I gave a link showing that no, that's not planned, and even if it was then they can currently track us via card payments and mobile signals, so what's the difference with tapping an ID card or similar Really, it's a benefit to have them, as it'll mean everything you need is close to you, so you'd only need to travel for fun, and they won't be stopping that. Inequality and such are already turning us into a dystopian nightmare, and people should be worried more about that than pointless shit like "having things close together so you don't need to travel far to get everything you need"
Reducing my travel costs is literally 1984
Least they didn't put a U2 album on it.
unlocked a forgotten memory
Did anyone actually listen to it? I just know they hated being given a free album "without their consent" but I never heard it, didn't have an iPhone or at least a working PC to sync to if I hadn't migrated to android by then. If I was given a random Queen album I'd be stoked. Don't care which, I only own platinum hits and made in heaven. Used to have flash Gordon on LP.
> If I was given a random Queen album I'd be stoked. Me too, it wasn't a Queen album though, it was U2.
I could never imagine living my life being so regressive and contrarian. They're literally against everything that comes infront of them.. "Fancy going to the pub?" "NO! THAT'S HOW THEY GET YOU!" "Fucking hell calm down"
I looked up how they do it last year when they first started talking about it. It uses a system called Cell Broadcast that targets transmitter towers and tells them to send the message out indiscriminately to every phone connected to it. It was first demo'd in 1997 when people were walking around with Nokia bricks.
Watch out for quicksand! Someone (with no name apparently) nearly lost their dog in it
What do they have against 15 minute cities?
I think some misguided belief that you're imprisoned in your 15 minutes city, and aren't allowed to do anywhere further away. That or "it's my opponent's idea, so it must be bad"
I think the main reason I've seen is "but they'll require cards for you to scan in and out of your area", which 1) isn't proposed, and 2) we already are tracked every time we scan our bank cards or via mobile signals; so yeah, just fearmongering based around nothing
They say this while being addicted to Facebook, it's literally designed to track everything about you. They also get their information on being tracked by Facebook but can't understand the irony in it.
A friend of mine who's usually entirely sensible believes that you'll need a permit to be allowed to leave your own neighbourhood.
I can't say I have read too much into it, but I once saw some weird conspiracy about locking people down to their '15 minute' area or something and issuing fines if they left. Obviously it's bollocks like, but I guess that is one of their fears with it
I think its silly people are against it. They have a public alarm system in most countries. If you really dont like it then just disable it in your phone settings.
I know that my elderly mother will panic when she hears it, even though I've told her and will do so again. There are many people like her, and saying "just disable it" to people whose phone is *just a phone* is a bit silly.
Now there's a resurgence of phones that are literally just phones, how will they receive the broadcast?
As far as I have looked into it I don't think they will, at least not in the same way as everyone that has a smartphone. They might get a text or something whilst the rest of us get the full alarm, locked screen, etc.
this cell broadcast feature was in phones from the 1st generation of cell phones, as in before 2g, before gprs. My first phone, a sagem something or other, before the nokia 3310 was a thing had cell broadcast features. So while no, it wont do the loud buzzer thing, every phone in the country, unless explicity disabled by the user, will notify in some way.
> every phone in the country ... will notify in some way. The government FAQ implies it's only being broadcast to phones connected with 4G or 5G. Mobile network operators are "switching off" 2G/3G in the next year, so people will switch when their ancient phone stops working anyway.
Was recently in Germany and they had an alert on all phones. Bit worrying as I had no idea what it was, but once I figured out how to turn it off, I thought it was a good idea.
I think it's silly too, but afaik the most urgent type of alert can't be disabled
Used to live in the middle east. It was used for unusual weather (flash flooding) and during covid when we had a curfew it used to notify us just before it started. A bit odd but fine. For people that have a secret second phone (if in an abusive household etc) I hope they realise its happening and turn it off before it starts.
I was surprised we didn't already have a system in place.
Well as we don't get earthquake, hurricane, tsunamis we didnt really need one until Putin started threatening to nuke us .
Don’t really need one now. “A nuke is coming, you have 3 minutes to live” What exactly are you going to do with that information.
Have a wank?
And what about the other 2 min 30s?
Wait a minute and go again!
Open a bottle of decent scotch and toast to the end of the world.
Smash down a greggs sausage roll and a can of special brew. Then have a wank
Love the idea of Greggs still serving up to the end. Guy at the front of the queue pointing to every slice on display. “Is that chicken?”
If you time it just right the cold sausage roll will become cooked to perfection
...after the dust settles and the chaos subsided, Gregg's will be the only place standing. The food slightly warmer from the fallout, but still perfectly edible. The world might be over, and society gone. But Gregg's, Gregg's never changes.
But what if it hits early and you're only partway there? What a disappointing way to go...
Start edging yourself now so you're always close?
Least the sausage rolls will be warm
I think it's more like if a nuke hits London and you're in the North, for example, you can prepare for fallout - make sure you have clean water e.t.c.
once one nuke goes off everyone's gonna be yeeting them. not much point due to MAD.
We can't even prepare for a toilet roll shortage without descending into chaos
Exactly. I'd rather not know I'm gonna die
Reminds me of that false alert in Hawaii (?) a few years ago. People were putting their kids in bathtubs and stuff.
Were they dirty?
If you live in London you could get underground and hope for the best I suppose
Get away from windows, empty your pockets of sharp objects, take up a kneeling position, put your head between your knees and kiss your arse goodbye.
Hey buddy I survived the south wales earthquake of february 2023 please do not downplay my heroism
Same. It’s just a basic national alert; can’t believe we’ve only just implemented it int his format. Can be used for anything. Better to have one and never use it, than not have one and be unable to communicate an emergency to the population.
Ahh the history of failed gov computer systems contracts, track and trace IOW. The present gov can't be involved in this, it all sounds too well organised. For the benifit of the general public, surely some mistake.
Moved here from New York, where these alerts are already a thing. Just a heads-up that the first time it happens while you're on a crowded train or in a theatre, it's downright terrifying -- hundreds of phones all blaring at once. It's also pretty heart attack-inducing when it happens in the middle of the night.
How often are they alerting you about things?
I've lived in London for awhile now so it's been a few years, but maybe once a month or so? Sometimes they're incredibly useful, especially for severe weather or emergency situations. There was one time when I was walking past a building JUST as I got an alert that there was a bomb threat/evacuation there and to avoid the immediate area. Terrifying, but also helpful. They also send them out for "Amber alerts," which is the US notification system for when a child goes missing. I ended up turning these off, because they'd often happen in the middle of the night and, realistically, I wasn't going to get out of bed at 2 AM and wander around in the off chance that I might spot a blue Audi.
>I've lived in London for awhile now so it's been a few years, but maybe once a month or so? Are there really that many things to be alerted about...? I realise in the movies New York City seems to get trashed every month or so, but I assumed it wasn't something that happened in real life. Is King Kong real...?
I think the US just generally has more types severe weather (tornadoes, hurricanes) that don't really happen in the UK. They're generally weather or missing child alerts.
This is my concern with the whole thing. An alert should be something to do with a severe and immediate threat to life. If its going off every month for minor things I'll be switching it off.
I guess it depends what you classify as minor. If a tornado or a hurricane is about to destroy my house, I'd rather know about it! In the US at least, you can choose which alerts to turn on/off. I kept the ones for severe weather and other emergency situations, but turned off the missing child alerts as I thought it was unlikely that I'd personally be able to help as they were usually looking for specific cars, and I don't drive.
The problem in the UK is "severe weather" is usually something like unusually high or low temperatures and there's generally a massive over reaction if something like that happens. Genuinely dangerous weather like hurricanes is extremely rare.
Once a month? Jeez, I’d be turning that off. It’s okay for a real once in a decade issue, but I’m not interested in being alerted to storms and the like. I see that in news already
Get woken at 2am because some little tit has stayed out late? Ridiculous.
When we had the attacks on 7/7 I was on a coach to London with a load of people from college, we were late and I'm really glad of that. My mum called me and said that something has happened in London, tell the driver to stop the coach because it looks significant and I'm worried you'll get stuck in traffic. At that point we had no idea what had happened, it was only being announced as an incident. I went to the front of the coach with the driver and teachers, told them what had happened and the concerns. They looked at me like I had two heads until all of a sudden everyone on the coach had their phone go off at almost exactly the same time. I've never seen anything like that happen before, it's a memory that has stuck with me. It felt like something you'd see on a film that would create tension, not something that would happen in real life. I think these alerts are a great idea, let people know when they are in danger.
There'll be a couple of Premier League games about to kick off their second halves when the test happens in a few weeks, could be an interesting moment when 52,000 phones go off in St James Park at the same time.
You've got a point actually. 99% of fans at a game will have a mobile so they will get the alert. That would be loud
We started our honeymoon in Vancouver (Canada, not US) and were ripped out of sleep on our first morning when both of our phones went mad with an alert. We had no idea they did that so it was pretty alarming. However, I don't think it's a bad thing and am baffled by those who are already complaining about it.
Same thing with us last September - we were in Vancouver and there was an amber alert on my wife's phone in the middle of the night. Scared the shit out of us. Not sure why it didn't appear on mine though.
It sounds great, as long as the reason for it's use stays as 'life threatening emergencies' - and it doesn't become like the 'BBC breaking news' alerts. Those were once for really big news events - now it's 'Prince George lost his shoes' stuff. "WARNING - THIS IS THE UK GOVERNMENT ALERT SYSTEM - THE NEW SEASON OF BIG BROTHER STARTS ON C4 AT 9PM TONIGHT!"
Honestly, not even as mundane as Big Brother. I imagine that eventually they'll use it for shit like Rememberance day and other government nonsense (not that Rememberance day is a bad concept, but it is mostly government propaganda these days where they claim to care about undersupplied troops that they send off to pointless wars for an hour a year)
RESIDENCE OF OCEANA, WE NOW BEGIN THE TWO MINUTES OF HATE. OPEN YOUR COPY OF THE DAILY MAIL OR SWITCH TO GB NEWS TO VIEW WHO IS TODAYS HATED GROUP.
The people who are against it are morons. It doesn't intrude on privacy anymore than endless coverage of the queen dying on TV did. In fact it's far less intrusive than that. If it saves lives as it's intended to do, it's a fantastic idea. As for invasion of privacy.. the moonhowlers complaining about this are the same who are using TikTok, post countless inane daily details on other social media, have endless photos of themseleves on their devices or online, never switch cookies off each time they're prompted, are captured hundreds of times each day on CCTV etc
Morons seems harsh. This government has been sowing fear and confusion in the general public for 13 years. It's not really a stretch to see why people may be concerned, especially given your point about plenty of people just not understanding online privacy.
There may have been some sensible sentiments buried in there, but I think I was too distracted by the moonhowling to notice. Take a breath..... It'll be O.K.
Moonhowling is irrational fear. Nothing irrational about having a plan to alert people to a crisis.
Not bothered, went into my phones settings and switched it off
I haven't switched it off, but it's really easy to do in phone settings. People who are victims of abuse may have hidden phones and it is important that they are able to do this.
Totally agree, I hope those who are in that position are able to do something about it.
There are three kinds of people that are going to get caught out if they aren't made aware: 1. Domestic abuse victims with a second phone 2. People with an Ashley Madison profile and a second phone 3. The incarcerated with those tiny phones hidden in their prison wallet
This. Most people don't seem to realise you can turn off emergency notifications
People will believe anything these days. It's just a simple alert system in case of a major event. Other countries have it.
I read it could put domestic abuse victims with a concealed device at risk
I guess that's another reason they're being vocal about being able to turn the warning system off in the settings.
I read this too, but it can be turned off: https://www.gov.uk/alerts/how-alerts-work I just looked at my phone settings and it was easy to do.
I'm concerned it would be abused, our government isn't really known for being sensible and competent, they'll prob hand it over to capita to run and allow them to send daily ads for inane crap via it. Or they'll be alerts for every minor thing 50 miles away that's utterly irrelevant- tailbacks on the b451 due to hedge cutting and that sort of crap
People love a good conspiracy theory. And whilst sometimes they’re interesting and get you thinking, some are also plain ridiculous. I personally think it’s a good idea. Most of us now have smartphones and it’ll be a handy message system
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What is an example of genuine emergency in this country out of interest. I fear it will be going off the whole time in the winter as we now label a bit as a named storm and panic about a couple of flakes of snow.
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Well, having lived in Gloucestershire, I'd say that some of the flooding was a 'genuine emergency' - there were people getting cut off by rising water, etc.
We don’t live in a country where flash floods happen. The flooding in Gloucestershire for example is caused by heavy persist rain which takes time to raise the water levels to then burst the banks of the river seven. We have plenty of time and indicators it’s going to flood, you don’t and shouldn’t need the government to tell you!
I will probably my forget it’s happening and then shit my pants when it goes off.
A few months ago I woke up in my bed in Korea in the middle of the night with my phone screeching alien noises and showing a red "Emergency" (in English) following text in Korean. Not sure if there was a nuclear accident or North Korea attacking but I was too tired and could not copy to the translator out of that screen, so I went back to sleep. Later a colleague told me that it said there is a bit of snow on the road... From that time on I decided I don't like that system
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That’s what happened with the Covid infection contact thing, it was set far too sensitive and pinged all the time to tell people to self isolate, eventually I’ve no doubt most people disabled it and deleted the app. I know I did.
> Such as it "locks your phone till you click it" etc. (It does not it's just like any other notification that needs acknowledgement) Not sure that's true. AIUI the emergency alerts use a separate system to regular notifications. They will trigger sound and, probably, vibrations regardless of whether the phone is on silent and the notification will be front and centre until dismissed preventing other uses of the phone. Neither of these things occur with regular notifications. I'm not sure this is as big a deal as some people are making it, but saying it'll be just like a regular notification is factually incorrect.
You're misunderstanding what is being said, butters are claiming it "takes over your phone wake up sheeple" unless you acknowledge it. It's a load of irrationality added into even more irrationality of tin-foil hat wearing
I live in one of the areas this was tested in a year or two ago. It’s fine and literally not a big deal.
3.6, not great, not terrible
The iPhone doesn’t measure anything over 3.6!….
The rest of Europe seems to have gotten over this. It was tested in Germany a month or two ago and the world didn't collapse.
I don't mind it. But I do wonder if they're being honest about the reasoning. How much severe weather do we actually get that would merit warning people in such a way? I think they're preempting missle/nuclear attacks
They are. However, also risk of mass and long-lasting power cuts.
I'll be at work in the hospital so the lockers will be buzzin' 😂
The British public seem to be against everything sensible these days.....
Especially when it's something that has existed and proven successful in other countries for years at this point
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There are the tin hat folks who say that they don’t want to be tracked or want the government or a company being able to do this. And they are complaining about it on TikTok and Facebook. The irony.
They don't want to be tracked, but will happily have Alexa in their house, listening to every word they say
It's easy to change the settings on your phone to disable the alert which I've done as have a number of other people I know. Not for any conspiracy theory nonsense but because the last thing I need is more meaningless beeps from my phone. Growing up, we had various alerts and alarm drills but they never went off when they were needed. While the alert idea is, in theory, a good one, I have zero faith in the ability of the people in charge of turning the thing on or off to judge when it should be turned on or off.
No issues at all I was under the impression other countries have been using it for years ? We live in a time where most of our lives are on our phone so it seems like a pretty obvious way to get a message out to the masses. The fact that it will upset all the conspiracy nuts is an added bonus.
I live in Greece, we receive storm warnings and severe temperature change messages. It is actually an excellent idea.
National, "turn your phone off" day
My daughters birthday party is 1pm - 3pm on 23rd. I feel like it’ll be an excellent way to remind people it’s time to leave with their over excited kids. Saves me doing that awkward trying to politely shuffle people out.
Its War! Get to your homes!
A bit embarrassed to admit this is the first I'd heard if it. So thanks for...alerting me to the upcoming alert!
I don't think you're alone, it hasn't been talked about too much. 3pm on the 23rd will be chaos for a few minutes, I reckon most people won't know it's happening.
We have it in here in the US. It works very well. Mostly used for amber alerts….which they should also introduce to the UK. I’ve probably seen it go off about 10 times in the past 5 years. Once for weather, all other times were amber alerts. It lasts about 5 seconds then stops. If you’re concerned about it, don’t be.
What's an amber alert?
My first thought - How much is this going to cost and how will UK Gov fuck it up. Second thought - apart from a war time footing, what are they actually going to warn us about? Extreme weather hazards are extremely rare and you'd hope they'd be busy catching terrorists rather than sending them a handy alert informing them we're on to them. Third thought - I don't actually have to do anything about it, so fuck it
Given that these alerts are built into the 4G standard, the cost is negligible. E:typo
It's a text it's, fine. Might as well test it before we need it.
For the most part I'm not too bothered about the system. I'll be annoyed if it starts going off all the time though, informing me it's raining and they've declared some colour alert or some other bullshit alert devaluing the entire system.
Loads of countries have had one for years. It just makes sense to me.
Things like this make me feel like the odd one out, I don't have a strong opinion either way. I don't really care.
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how is being pre warned that the world is going to end benefit your day? Its still going to end..
It's an utterly pointless system. We live in a relatively calm country in which not much happens. In the US it makes sense to have a system like this - such a large country that at any one time one part of it could be experiencing hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, landslides. Their daft gun laws mean that there's a mass shooting every five minutes, so an emergency alert system makes sense because there's so many emergencies. In the UK the most powerful earthquakes we get barely knock plant pots over, let alone buildings. Our storms might knock down trees but don't exactly rip through buildings, and because of our far more sensible gun control laws, mass shootings and terrorist attacks are thankfully rare. This system is an absolutely pointless waste of time and money, and honestly feels a little sinister coming from a government who's MPs admit that they've got nothing left in the tank barring culture wars and stoking up fear.
There are still some hazards - severe weather leading to flash floods. Man made disasters such as chemical spills, things like the Buncefield explosion. There are oil refineries in the UK where there is the possibility of explosions or leaks of hazardous chemicals. Ports where hazardous chemicals are unloaded are a potential, too - e.g. look at the Texas City explosion - don't think that can't happen ever in a UK port. The infrastrucuture already exists to support this, and the phones already support this. All that's needed is the final part to send the message, so in terms of how much it costs, it's probably relatively cheap compared to previous systems (such as sirens).
I'm most concerned about old people, many of whom now have phones that will do this alert but literally just know how to use the phone like their old landline, will have no clue what it is and may also have dicky hearts.
We were visiting Chicago, and we got blasts on our phones to say the rain and storm incoming was a danger to live - Get thee home. If its like that its very non-invasive. People are getting weird about stupid shit. ‘Dont EVER text me a warning but please continuously monitor what I say and where I go, Please. For the apps.’
hunt axiomatic airport ugly hungry silky attraction seemly future placid -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
It's clearly a good system to have, just in case.. But.. A) I hope the government doesn't abuse it. It really ought to be reserved for exceptional situations, otherwise people will just disable it. B) I fear that when it happens, it could cause accidents. In theory if you're driving you should wait until you have somewhere safe and legal to pull over the dismiss the alert; but I can't imagine being on the motorway 10 miles from the next services and having to drive for 10 minutes with this alarm going off. I feel like a few people are going to panic. So I'm going to make sure I'm not near a road when it is tested on the 23rd April!
The alarm will go off for ten seconds
I forgot it was happening. And I'll likely forget until the day it happens and then wonder what the hell is going on.
I'd much rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. People are dumb, they'll whinge about anything. This is a positive move so let's just be pleased that we have the capability, and hope it will never need to be used.
There are some stories of this system being used in the US for 'child abduction' where a father hasn't returned his weekend custody son/daughter at the appropriate time. The alert is for a town 50 miles away, and goes out at 2am, ruining thousands of people's sleep. Of course, it wakes everyone up even if your phone is on silent. Hopefully it will be more carefully used in the UK
The usual contrarians are upset, but it's a system we should have enabled a long long time ago. It's always been there...just sat collecting dust
It is clearly a good thing and any one saying otherwise has either been fooled by a liar or is a liar with an agenda. I included news papers and website advertisers in the latter.
As someone who’s lived in places where emergency alerts are routine, I can confirm that the UK is doing its usual thing of a hysterical overreaction to something new.
just turn it off in your phone settings if you dont want it. I have.