Comment on Wildfire phone alert was 'entirely appropriate', government says
tal@lemmy.today 1 day ago
I don’t think that using this is a good idea unless there is a substantial probability that the owner of the phone needs to take action or be personally impacted. A tornado or flood warning, maybe.
Nagging at people to be on good behavior just pisses them off.
I remember during COVID-19 when my county health department (in the US) decided to keep sending sporadic alerts reminding people to social-distance. And used a robocaller to hit landlines with the same message. I was pretty disgusted. If there is a major regulatory change that affects everyone, okay, maybe then. If you’re just repeating a message reminsing pwople to social-distance for the fifth time in the hopes that more people will comply, that just makes me think that the alerting system needs to be taken out of your hamds.
scratchee@feddit.uk 1 day ago
I think it depends on volume.
Once or twice a year for arguably not too major things is better than never, because it helps test the system and people won’t get overwhelmed by 1 or 2 alerts a year. Like a fire drill, but maybe slightly more useful since it actually is providing some actual info hopefully.
If you go higher than that, you need to start raising the bar so that you don’t (excepting the emergency action requirement you laid out)
toebert@piefed.social 18 hours ago
Ignoring whether or not this alert was appropriate or not, the government sends out test alerts periodically to both test the system and for people to know their device works. They announce it in advance for a specific time so you can expect it and not panic, plus if you didn’t get it you’d know you have an issue on your side.