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The FCC Is Changing Up the Country's Emergency Alert System (theverge.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The FCC announced today that it'll bolster the country's Emergency Alert System to prevent unexpected false alarms, like the one that happened in Hawaii earlier this year. State and local officials will now be able to conduct "live code" tests that'll use the same alert codes and processes that would be required in an actual emergency. The idea is that officials will better learn the system while the public will get used to responding to alerts and know what to expect. Everyone in the area will get a test message, like a real alert. The agency also says that public service announcements about the Emergency Alert System will now be able to use the same alert sounds as an actual emergency. (The alerts will include a disclaimer about what's happening, and officials will have to actually tell people beforehand.) Finally, anyone who uses the emergency system will be required to tell the FCC if it accidentally triggers a false alert.

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  1. conditioning by MagicM · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Live tests" will be performed every week in order to keep the populace continuously scared while simultaneously conditioning them to feel like it's "just another alert" when a real disaster happens.

    A death spiral of disasters and acceptance, until the world ends and everyone just shrugs and says "it's fine".