Millions of mobile phone in the UK emitted a loud alarm today as part of a new public alert being tested by the Government.
The trial of a system designed to warn Brits if there is a danger to life nearby lasted for about 10 seconds at 3pm, with the warning being sent to all 4G and 5G devices.
Now established, the system will be used in life-threatening emergencies including flooding and wildfires.
An utter waste of time and money. The government needs to learn its core reason for existing – to defend this country from invaders (failed), to police our streets and fight crime (failed) and to provide a decent infrastructure where private organisations either cannot or it is impractical for them to do so. Otherwise, I want them to stop stealing my money and to fuck off and leave me alone. We don’t get wildfires in this country and if it floods, those affected will find out soon enough. If Vlad does send nukes, a stupid phone alert will be a waste of effort anyway. I do not need the government to send ridiculous and unnecessary alerts to my phone to tell me something I can work out for myself by looking out of the window.
Tossers.
Neither did mine. My phone is 4G but I think it hasn’t got the requisite android version. On my work phone I turned it off.
I was going to put both inside an old metal biscuit tin, but I forgot. Seems like there was no need.
If only we could send a FUCK OFF AND STOP WASTING OUR MONEY message back!
That would be brilliant.
You would think that all of our actual problems had been solved. Although most of our actual problems are caused by the government in the first place so they could solve those at a stroke just by doing nothing.
I would love them to do nothing. Piss off and do nothing at all – and that goes for the jobsworths in the local councils as well. Any politician who ran on that ticket would get my vote.
Both our personal phones and my work phone were off, for good measure the simcards out too.
If it wasn’t for google traffic showing delays (can’t make head or tail of waze) i’d chuck the smartish phone and restart an old Nokia for emergency use only.
Not the least interested in anything the govt or those creatures of the night who own them have to say either by word or message, it will always be lies and propaganda.
As above, just sod off and leave me and my loved ones alone.
Mine didn’t ring either. Apparently somewhere at a McDonalds restaurant not a single alarm.
Seems to me everytime the ordinary people are given an opportunity to give the government/state/establishment the finger, they do it! This is why there will never be another referendum, nor any clear choices at elections.
In their story on this, the Graun seemed to think that even if you disabled the emergency alerts on your phone then this alert would have still got through because it was some kind of higher level of alert which can’t be disabled on most phones. Well, that was not true in my case because I disabled emergency alerts on my phone a few weeks ago and I didn’t receive today’s alert.
One amusing thing when I disabled the alerts on my phone was that it gave me the option to disable/enable earthquake alerts. When I selected that option, my phone told me that earthquake alerts were not available in my region. Well, really. Get away. As I live in London, how much risk are devastating earthquakes likely to pose to me?
I suppose it will be activated for all the 40mph winds, Beasts from the East and November, December, January, February, March and April fantasy snowfall. Make no mistake: the tossers have it therefore they’ll use it and my phone will stay switched off.
https://rolfnorfolk.substack.com/p/emergency-alert
My phone is really old so it wasn’t affected. Wifey’s phone is newer and hers went off but she doesn’t think that it’s a problem.
I don’t know if my phone went off, as I was fast asleep after a few glasses of red at lunchtime, and so was Senora O’Blene!
Doesn’t this ridiculous excuse for a government realise that the whole ‘exercise’ would be seen as an utter farce?
I seem to recall that, a few years ago, they made a big fanfare about cutting tax on working class things like flat caps and whippet racing, so probably not.
I left my phone enabled so I could hear it for myself and so you didn’t need to. At 3:00 pm it sounded a rather feeble but nasty tone and displayed a message. I tapped OK to cancel the nasty noise and the message disappeared! I had to go into Settings – Safety and Emergency – Wireless Emergency Alerts – Emergency alert history to retrieve the message. Not very convenient if there really is an emergency. Surely the sensible way to design this thing would be to let us cancel the noise and leave the message displayed. Somebody didn’t think this through.
Anyway, while I was there I disabled alerts.
There was nary a peep out of my phone. I haven’t done anything to ‘Settings’ so I have no idea why I was spared this latest nonsense, but I’m happy that I was!
Alert! Alert! Alert!
One person world wide has died from a new strain of Covid virus!
Alert! Alert! Alert!
The UK has now had six weeks of slightly damp weather!