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submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by thehatfox@lemmy.world to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

Nearly jumped out my skin a few minutes ago when sirens started blaring. The emergency alert system just triggered, with this generic message about wildfires.

Not any actual impending ones about to burn my house down. Just the general possibility. Because of a heatwave nobody has apparently noticed.

Thought the bomb was about to drop for a second. Has nobody in our government heard the story about the boy who cried wolf?

Sorry if this is venting but this rather caught me by surprise.

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[-] G4Z@feddit.uk 24 points 2 days ago

Well, if that's what it's going to be used for then I've switched it off. Stupid use of the system.

On android search emergency alerts in your settings.

[-] DakRalter 13 points 2 days ago

Thanks, I didn't realise there was an option to disable it.

You'd think they'd save this klaxon style alert for imminent danger, not "don't use barbecues". What the hell.

[-] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 9 points 2 days ago

All mine are swtched off.

They still come through in BC Canada. Doesn't care about the settings; they all play anyway.

Amber Alerts, Emergency Warnings, Tests, all of them play regardless.

There's been 6 here, since May this year. 2 of those were between 12am and 1am.

[-] d00ery@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

In the UK the option to disable them is to protect people with secret phones (specifically spousal abuse)

[-] G4Z@feddit.uk 1 points 2 days ago

At that point, I would just switch it off at night.

[-] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

It's my alarm.

[-] BrightCandle@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

This proved they will just use it for announcing their latest damp squib policies so zero point keeping it on, they are only going to abuse it.

[-] KryptonNerd@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 days ago
[-] HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 day ago

Yeah, I won't turn it off for a single unnecessary alert but if they keep using it for stuff like this I probably will.

Are they going to give us alerts to drive safely next?

[-] Axolotl_cpp@feddit.it 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Even if you switch it off, you will get notifications most of the time because the gov can just enforce them to be received so you may aswell just re-enable it to be sure to not lose anything

[-] Archimedes@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

What could go wrong

this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
139 points (97.3% liked)

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