Wednesday 2:18 P.M. EST the entire US buzzed and beeped with a pop-up notification (alert message) on their phones. Yes, we are talking about the recent Presidential Alert message that has taken the internet by storm.
This alert drill carried out on Wednesday ideally hit the 225 billion cell phones with an annoying beep and vibration.
People all over twitter and other forums are talking about the test conducted by the “National Wireless Emergency Alert System”. This system is designed to generate alerts in case of any natural disaster; terrorist attack or an unpleasant incident. The system at once makes a notification that goes out to everyone simultaneously. This alert drill carried out on Wednesday hit the 225 million cell phones with an annoying beep and vibration. It took around 30 minutes for the alert to reach almost every smartphone.
The alert has a tone and vibration just like weather alerts. The only difference is that you cannot opt out of the Presidential Alerts just like you would in AMBER or weather alerts. Sources tell that FEMA would be in contact with the cellular network companies to gather feedback about the drill once they are done with it. Moreover, this alert system has nothing to do with the privacy of people.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an active entity behind this alert system. So if you think that this alert message is coming straight from the white house or trump himself, then you are wrong. Anybody responsible from the president’s team would inform FEMA about the news that they have to spread and only then FEMA would generate a notification/alert using the National Wireless Emergency System.
To the disappointment of many, there is no way you can turn off these notifications on your smartphones. You have to always and forever deal with these alerts. This thing didn’t sit well with many as people took social media to talk and complain about these ‘imposed’ alerts. The rage has already led to multiple lawsuits filed against these alerts. Many think that not being able to opt out from this notification violates the US law.
We hope this agitation calms down soon!
Fazeel Ashraf
Jazib Zaman
