FCC updates Emergency Alert System to prevent false alarms

Earlier this year, the people of Hawaii received an emergency alert on their phone. This alert read:

As you can probably now tell, a missile did not hit Hawaii in January 2018This message, which explicitly said was “not a drill,” indeed turned out to be just that: a drill. The test message was mistakenly sent out as an actual emergency alert. However, at the time, it took nearly 40 minutes for officials to issue a correction about the alert, sending pretty much everyone on the island in a confused state of panic.

In response to the false alarm in Hawaii, which occurred when a state emergency employee hit the wrong option on a drop-down menu, the FCC is taking steps to make the Emergency Alert System more reliable. Read more…

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