A nationwide test of the emergency and wireless alert systems will be conducted Wednesday at 2:20 p.m. ET, when a message will be sent to all cellphones, TVs and radios.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said in a news release in August that a message that reads, “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed,” will be sent to all phones. A Spanish version of the message will be displayed depending on the language settings of the devices.

A separate message will be sent to radios and televisions, saying, “This is a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, covering the United States from 14:20 to 14:50 hours ET. This is only a test. No action is required by the public.”

The test is a joint operation between FEMA and the Federal Communications Commission, meant to “ensure that the systems continue to be effective means of warning the public about emergencies, particularly those on the national level,” according to the August news release.

  • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    If anyone has a powered cell phone they don’t want someone in their household to know about, power it off.

    • TheFlopster@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If it’s being sent over the cell phone carrier signal, does that mean if you’re at home, or otherwise connected to Wi-Fi, that you won’t get it?

      • cm0002@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No, even on WiFi your phone maintains its cellular signal, even data depending on your settings (it’s just not actively used as wifi will be considered superior).

      • Fondots@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        To expand on the abusive relationship aspect, say your partner, parents, etc. want to keep you from contacting people, maybe your family/friends, maybe the police, maybe your doctor (for example to seek abortion services, or maybe treatment for a health issue they’ve been trying to withhold medication from you for) they may check your phone to see who you’ve been contacting or even take your phone from you to prevent you from using it.

        There’s also of course less savory reasons, cheating, dealing drugs, or other illegal activities.

        And somewhat less likely, undercover officers, FBI agents, investigative journalists, etc. whose cover could potentially be compromised if the wrong people are around and that second phone goes off.

    • Agent641@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      And wrap it in tinfoil. Even “off” phones can be woken up and forced to display messages.

  • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’m a little over 40 years old, which means I’ve experienced a number of situations where such an emergency broadcast system would have been a helpful way to disseminate information and quell panic. We’ve had tests of these systems for as long as I can remember.

    I also cannot remember it ever actually being used.

    • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      I’m in Hawaii. I can remember one being used. To create panic. Twitter was where the best attempt at quelling the panic was done.

      • Bye@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I have so many friends who were like “yeah I knew it was fake”. Even if they did, so many of us didn’t and were scared. I was super scared. Fucking old man I hate him. Why would you wait so long to send the follow up. Awful.

        • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
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          1 year ago

          While a lot of other institutions were caught flat footed, everyone in that office presumably got the alert as well and should have realized immediately it was a huge fuckup.

    • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Really? You’ve never heard EAS interruptions on the TV or radio for weather, or gotten an AMBER alert on your phone?

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      My state used it when a natural gas plant had an explosion to ask people to lower their thermostats. They also used it for a handful of covid updates that felt like the incorrect use of such a system.

    • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Adding to that, didn’t we JUST have a different system send a nationwide alert about 4 or 5 years ago?

  • BaroqueInMind@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    This totally sounds like the start of a horror SCP anomaly.

    Edit: except the horror is the actual nature of our current reality we are currently experiencing, so nm

        • Sylver@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Just in case you happen to already be within a quarter mile of a nuclear shelter.

          They aren’t advertised very well, but I have seen entrances to one in downtown Pittsburgh.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            You think you would even survive in a shelter if you lived in a city the size of Pittsburgh? That would be a direct hit.

            • Sylver@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Oh yeah that thought never left my mind as well. Best case scenario you end up in a tomb with 9,000 others.

        • Mr_Blott@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          “We have nukes at home!”

          • Nukes at home - The slow inevitable crumbling of society as we know it
          • Confused_Emus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I fail to see how they relate…? Prank videos often show what some might consider harassment of strangers. SCPs are essentially a collection of creative writing prompts. I legitimately cannot fathom how the existence of the SCP website would bother someone unless they just have an issue with fiction writing for some strange reason…?

            • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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              1 year ago

              Haven’t you heard? A bunch of nerds writing on the internet is exactly the same as harassment in real life.

              Watch out nerd! You are doing it right now!

    • Tracyxoxo@lemmynsfw.com
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      1 year ago

      Report to nearest FEMA concentration camp (John please edit/review, I think concentration camp sounds too strong)

  • Redoomed@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    FYI:

    On GrapheneOS, you can fully disable emergency alerts in Settings → Safety emergency → Wireless emergency alerts since we add a toggle for Presidential alerts. The naming of the alert types varies based on country which is determined by the carrier’s country code not language.

    Source: [Nitter link] [Twitter link]

  • ackzsel@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    A Spanish version of the message will be displayed depending on the language settings of the devices.

    To me this is the most disturbing line from this post. How can the sender of a message probe your phone’s settings? What other information can be queried from the device this way? Can we now remotely determine someone ethnicity from just a phone number?

    • misterundercoat@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Both versions are sent to everyone. Your phone will decide which version to display based on its language setting. You can put the pitchfork down.

    • RustyWizard@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Could be that both texts are provided to the phone, which would then pick the appropriate version. Seems more reasonable than trying to keep track or query millions of phones of different make and manufacturer for a language setting.