I’ve turned my emergency alert off because I’m such a rebel!

[StupidFaces]

Urgh

Facebook … numerous posts over the last days consisting of:

“EMERGENCY ALERT SWITCHED OFF!!”

“Leaving my emergency alert on so I can reply and tell them to go and fuck themselves!”

“Remember everyone, emergency alerts can and should be switched off by tomorrow!”

“That’s my emergency alert turned off lol”

Why??? What’s so big and clever about turning the alert off? Don’t people realise that most countries have had this for years? Turning it off doesn’t make you Billy Big Bollocks and boasting about it just makes you look stupid!

YABU - I’ve turned mine off and I’m proud of it! Down with the establishment!

YANBU - people are ridiculous

Most people are knobs. The sooner people realise that, the better.

I think that poster is in another country not the UK.

Coming to a card shop near you soon!

Where do you live @Grumpypotamus and @Parker231 ? Just curious . I've gathered they have this alert system in the US - just wondered where else .

If it's in Europe it won't have the alert. The alert is triggered according to proximity to the mast in the affected region.

I honestly have no idea what this thread is about. 😳 What emergency alert?

I’ve gone 43 years without an emergency warning, and I intend to continue through my life without this unnecessary nanny state type alarm. So I’ve turned it off. However, I haven’t advertised this, I simply did it.

I can understand why the alarm might be a good thing if you live in an earthquake zone, or perhaps a war zone…there again, our government is intent on going to war aren’t they, so perhaps that’s what we’re being primed for.

I agree so much with this.

People seem to think that we are somehow morally superior to other countries that have tsunamis, etc, but it is just lick we haven't been hit with one in the last few hundred years. The British isles has been hit in the past, and will be hit again in the future, and it will be unexpected when it comes...

and floods, hurricanes, wild fires, etc, all happen, and the quicker alerts go out, the safer everyone is

We needed this last year with those wild fires.

Yeah - just worked that out. Always forget it’s not just in the Uk!

IrregularChoiceFan ha ha, no, that's ridiculous! Just pointing out some have good reason to turn it off, but I guess they're not the ones shouting about it

The one that has been in the news since at least last month.

A test message will trigger on all compatible phones in the UK at 3pm today.

the practice one at 3pm today.

Maybe she knows her elderly relative better than some random MN poster does? 🤔🙄

Wildfires are a big risk and increasing significantly due to climate change. We can’t have hurricanes in this country (sea temp not warm enough), and tsunamis are rare because we’re not on a fault but possible (could be caused by a big landslip). Storm surges are a big risk but are easier to forecast although the details of the impacts are hard to get right. In my area we had our first ever red severe weather warning last year, and people in the south east aren’t really used to that sort of extreme weather.

Yanbu.
Turn it off if you want, no one gives a fuck so you don't need to crap on about it.

meh. They're dicks but it's on them.

The good thing about the newest systems is that they can be pretty localised. So if, say, a dam bursts and you have to leave immediately, they can warn only the area that needs to evacuate.

If they want to drown? that's on them (except they will be putting emergency services at risk.

If you have a secret phone for non-dickish reasons, i get it. But those people aren't making big noise about it

That's brilliant. Mine doesn't even know what the Web or qwerty keyboard is! If you said spreadsheet she'd scream to stop swearing at her in a foreign language!

OK I can relax if it turns itself off after 10 seconds.

I'm looking forward to all the 'I've just found out that my partner has a secret second phone' threads.

We live in Canada (although am in Belgium at the moment).

How many threads will there be after 3pm today asking "AIBU to be pissed off my phone didn't alert me at 3pm".

In general, we British just cannot handle change in any form and are extremely suspicious of any changes in technology or procedure. 5G technology? Oh my god, mind control! Covid vaccinations? They're hiding chips in the vaccines! Id at the polling booth? What about my rights? I don't want to carry id!

I live in Plymouth where the awful Keyham shooting happened where a gunman killed 5 people including a 3 year old girl. If a national alert could potentially warn people of situations like that then I'm all for it.

I saw they had one on Beef (watch it if you haven't, it's very good) when a child went missing. Seems like a pretty good idea to me 💁

I remember several years ago a dangerous prisoner had escaped and was believed to be in our area - before widespread social media etc. Police went door to door telling people to lock gates, close and lock doors and windows etc, and stay inside. Cue lots of police helicopters and other related kerfuffle. Imagine how much more quickly that message could have been spread with this system.

😂

I think the people boasting about turning this off are the same people who copy and paste statements on Facebook saying “I publicly declare that I own the copyright to all my Facebook content and I DO NOT give Facebook my permission to use or sell my content”.