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“THEY ARE PREPARING us for something,” one message reads, in response to news that emergency phone alerts will be tested in the UK and Spain.
The proposed Public Warning System will send text message warnings to the public in cases of large-scale public emergencies when there’s danger to life, such as extreme weather events.
Although the system is for the UK, people in the Republic of Ireland who live or are travelling in border areas (or in the North) will receive the warning if they are connected to a UK mobile phone network at 3pm on Saturday afternoon.
But conspiracy minded messages, like the one posted above in a group that usually discusses conspiracy theories about Covid-19, are speculating on the secret and malevolent motives behind these alert systems.
On Telegram, some speculated that the alert was a test to smoke out non-conformists and freethinkers, just like facemasks. Or perhaps they are preparing to tell us about the aliens?
On Twitter, users wondered what data would be collected from phones that received the alert, or whether they should trust a government they say conspired to pretend COVID was real.
Conspiracist circles in Britain have been even more vigorous than their Irish counterparts in spreading misinformation ahead of the test.
Some have claimed that the alert will access people’s personal phone data; that it will install spyware; that it will disable phones that do not reply to the text message; or that it will even activate a secret pathogen (secretly introduced through vaccines) lying dormant in the blood of the public.
All of these claims are untrue.
This week, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications here explained what will happen.
“Recipients will hear a loud, siren-like sound and the phone will use a distinct vibration. A message will appear on the home screen of the phone until it is acknowledged,” a statement from the Department reads.
“An Emergency Alert looks and sounds very different to other types of messages such as SMS ‘text messages’.”
An Irish government spokesperson also confirmed to The Journal that a text messaging system to warn Irish citizens of large-scale emergencies is expected to be introduced next year.
The Irish system is just one of many being rolled out since a 2018 EU directive required member states to arrange SMS systems to warn citizens of emergencies.
In contrast to the conspiracy theorists, the UK government insists that the goal of the alert system is simply to warn people of dangers.
“The service has already been used successfully in a number of other countries,” the UK Cabinet Office said, “including the US, Canada, the Netherlands and Japan, where it has been widely credited with saving lives, for example, during severe weather events.
“In the UK, alerts could be used to tell residents of villages being encroached by wildfires, or of severe flooding.”
However, experts have cautioned that scammers might use the messaging service or the test as a means to steal money or data, and the UK government and charities have warned victims of domestic abuse to turn off any mobile phone that they want to keep hidden from their abuser during the test.
For Irish users in border areas who wish to avoid the alert, they can opt out in their phones settings (see instructions here).
Otherwise, like most messages, it can be swiped away, unanswered, and ignored.
With reporting from Muiris O’Cearbhaill.
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It never ceases to amaze that the same people who accuse their governments of chronic ineptitude in the running of their country seriously believe that the same government is capable of enacting incredibly complex conspiracies .
@declan hassett: the competent government are the “secret” government .
@declan hassett: true! Imagine giving the likes of Bush credit for 9/11 being an inside job. The second greatest fool of a president the Americans have ever had. And then there’s the fake moon landing lot! That would be some cover up involving 1000s of people and paying off the Russians to keep quite. Dr’s Dunning and Kruger needs to treat them all.
@Paul Furey: amazing because bush senior was a very capable and highly intelligent man. Bush Jr was a disaster. And they say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I dunno
@Paul Furey: well they managed to cover up the Nordstream quite well and there would have been a lot of people involved in that.
There appears to be a lot of people with far too much time on their hands but far too few brain cells…
@John Bathe: why does this even deserve an article. There’s already been several articles on the warning now for something that’s extremely normal. Trying to make news out of nothing.
@John Bathe: have a look at the Trump thread. Migrated to there.
Russiagate was the biggest conspiracy of them all, but because the liberal media fell for it, it is now rarely even mentioned.
@west awake: “Liberal media” (sigh)
@west awake: what does this even mean?
@west awake: Not a hoax. You are earning your keep again. Russophile’s and GOP falsely claim this. People were jailed for collusion. Plenty of evidence for collusion in the Muller report plus publications such as The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder and Putin’s People by Belton. Then there is Trump’s bowing to Putin on every occasion and siding with Russia while POTUS. Helsinki 2018 shows a POTUS being supplicant to a Russian leader. Trump is not a supplicant man. There is a good reason behind it. Putin has compromising evidence on Trump. No one knows what that is. We can all guess and it’s not good.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/russiagate-wasnt-a-hoax/615373/
@Stephen Gill: Your paranoia is a rather unsettling.
@Bat Collins: Yes, the same media that lied to us that Russia blew up THEIR OWN pipeline. How’s that for a conspiracy theory.
@Paul Furey: Have you problems with basic reading and comprehension?
@west awake: The Non-Liberal media lie and the Liberal media tell the truth!
@west awake: Have you got proof, they didn’t do it and where is it?
For all there “freethinking” they could just google how to block the message being recieved on their phone it’s not that hard to do
Imagine taking everything you read at face value, and going through your adult life without ever undergoing critical thinking. All the while, actually making fun of people for doing their own research.
Yes Yes, everyone, this is of course to alert us of the wildfires encroaching our villages. Don’t believe that and we will point, and laugh.
@HP M: google is not research. The worst thing the internet did for mankind was to give plonkers somewhere to congregate.
@HP M: Most that shout about ‘critical thinking’ do not fully understand what that entails or how to carry out rigorous research. The ‘dO yOUr Own rEsEArch’ brigade too often equate ‘information’ with ‘knowledge’ and ‘understanding’.
@HP M: I’d suggest Facebook as a great source of news and research. You can trust your friends 100% to give you scientific accurate news. Why would you trust some college educated person who only spent 5 years training in an area of expertise? No, FB your only man!!
@HP M: Critical thinking is the ability to find sound, factual information amongst chaff. Conspiracy theorists mistakenly call themselves critical thinkers because they find themselves so far down the rabbit hole of chaff, that they start to subconsciously believe that this chaff, or useless information, is actually fact. This rabbit hole explanation has been proven over and over again, not just recently with the Covid / vaccine / pandemic theories, but with the UFO hysteria in the 60’s and the lizard people population theory to name just a few.
@HP M: Here’s the thing. Research is a learned skill; it is hard, it is nuanced and complex, and it is true that the majority of people would not even know where to begin or even HOW to do [their own] research.
Research is NOT:
Googling, scrolling your FB newsfeed, or watching YouTube to search for the results you are hoping to find to be “true.” These are called confirmation biases and are quickly and easily ruled out when doing actual research.
They are poking a country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world. They need a warning system
@Brian Boru: It doesn’t matter that they have the largest nuclear arsenal. If both USA and Russia attacked each other with nuclear weapons, neither side would get to use them all.
@Brian Boru: HMG says this alert system concerns severe flooding, fires and extreme weather.
@Brian Boru: Russia, again.
These people are for the birds, and worse again some of them are parents raising children. Scary prospect all that misinformation being fed to them. Hopefully they can see their parents are crazy and still make it in the world by doing good for themselves.
@Fi Wyse: Funny though how the ‘misinformation’ often turns out to be right though.
@Tony Murphy: such as ?????
@Tony Murphy: I’ve yet to discover something they have been right on
@Tony Murphy: give over Tom. Or better still, move to America. You’d be welcomed there.
@Tony Murphy: no it doesn’t!
@Fi Wyse: It’s going back a bit, but at one time, accusing priests of raping children would have been seen as in the conspiracy realm. Even with the mother and baby homes and all of that, It couldn’t have functioned without the help of the state and co-operation of a brainwashed population. There’s a lot of insane conspiracies that can gain attention due to the Internet but I would much rather live in this era than the one my folks had to endure.
@Kieran Finn: Masks useless for Covid, ventilators would kill huge numbers of old people, virus probably originated in a lab, Fauci funding gain-of-function, Russiagate was a hoax…..lots more.
Of course many conspiracy theories are daft but deviating from from the mainstream narrative doesn’t make them so.
@Tony Murphy: expected you were going to be down a conspiracy theorist rabbit hole but no I was wrong
If there wasn’t an alert system they’d be criticised for lack of preparedness. They implement a system and they’re immediately accused of plotting Armageddon!! No pleasing some people who latch on to everything for a whinge.
Once a population are kept in a state of anxiety through convictions of impending doom, they will not respond to situations that are normal and do not serve an agenda. I explained what purpose the scientific method serves in this respect but it is the beginning of the end when the accurate description is erased and any further comment is blocked. Fair enough even if dismaying.
There is no real difference between an opinion and a conspiracy for often a mob are driven to protect themselves and their convictions because it gives them satisfaction, in the same way, people enjoy horror movies.
” My dear Kepler, I wish that we might laugh at the remarkable stupidity of the common herd. What do you have to say about the principal philosophers of this academy who are filled with the stubbornness of an asp and do not want to look at either the planets, the moon or the telescope, even though I have freely and deliberately offered them the opportunity a thousand times? Truly, just as the asp stops its ears, so do these philosophers shut their eyes to the light of truth.” Galileo
I don’t see conspiracies, I see laziness and indifference just as Yeats wrote in his most overused statement-
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Yeats
I don’t control the narrative, I share information and that is the difference between a misguided and dangerous conviction and people who can reason for themselves.
@Carrickview: My God! but you do go on and on.
@Bat Collins:
I gave you a thumbs up as representing all the others who can’t raise their standard of consideration on any topic.
The Journal wants to control the narrative and that means information sharing is disallowed. So be it.
@Carrickview: My post get deleted when I go off topic or get too personal. I don’t blame the Journal. Every community has it’s own rules and crying about it just makes a poster look weak. Sometimes people come up with conspiracies because they lack the self awareness to blame themselves.
@Carrickview: Keplers mother was imprisoned and tried for being a witch. Probs is the best example of a conspiracy takeover with some 9 million women murdered.
Although the system is for the UK, people in the Republic of Ireland who live or are travelling in border areas
Although the system is for the UK, people in Ireland who live or are travelling in border areas
Fixed that for ya. No charge this time.
@Whataboutery: They get confused when one mentions the colony.
Probably the reverse vampires again, we’re through the looking glass here people.
These news outlets really like to latch on to a few posts or a small cohort and say it’s everyone that opposes their narrative such as thejournal.ie
@Fi Wyse:”@Tony Murphy: I’ve yet to discover something they have been right on”
that’s because your an eyes wide shut kind of living gal Isnt it…you could have the evidence presented right in front of you but you will choose not to believe it…you’ve already demonstrated that…by not addressing people’s comments or even being able to refute them…
Toxic. Get your booster and comply. Your government knows best. All hail the UN! Lemmings.
In an emergency situation don’t think I would like my phone ringing until I acknowledged it.
Was there a fact check needed on this? Anyone who would believe a few of the things mentioned above are certifiable. Doing fact checks on really silly stuff like this and the “no, a kick to the te$ticles is not as sore as childbirth” one from your archives means that people take your more grown up fact checks less serious.
@Dave Connolly: you mean like yourself…
The Irish government will not implement this until next year. Is that because the aliens have already landed? I’m going to be attacked now by the rigorously scientific educated critics and debunked on the journal for cracking a joke, and refusing to genuflect at their scientific alters. So be it. Work away.
Lol!!!! They need to get a life.
@Paul Furey: what’s a life to you? Not speaking about such things as conspiracs?…you make such a rediculouse statement not knowing what kinds of lives these people lead…fact is most people work, eat, sleep, rear their kids, do some sort of activity, watch TV oh and post online….which statistically means many of these that you seek to deride do…
So I repeat what is getting a life to you? Or is just you went people with differing opinions to you to drop them and tow your line…
That’s a small petty man right their…
@William slevin: I think by getting a life he means believing everything you see on the mainstream media.
@Paul Shepherd who imin the last 70 years has ever complained about a lack if an alert system….your comment is rediculouse and doesn’t hold up just to post so you can attack people you don’t agree with….
All the jabbed up minions in the comments…
Please Money let it be aliens, please.
We deserve much better than this
I don’t know why they worried about aliens in the secondary headlines….. those that are watching us, have already been scared away by the conspiracy theorists!
@Joe x: or maybe they see your kind and wonder how can a species produce such vileness and have decided to wait it out until reason wins the day…
@William slevin: getting extremely triggered and dying on the hill of the conspiracy theorists is very sad. I guess when most conspiracy theorists are far right it might explain your actions….
@William slevin: yeah right, You lot are the one’s believing the far right, and I’m the vile one….. one with you Williie
This type of people always need something to entertain their 2 brain cells.
@Yvon Queguiner: what do you do then with just the one?
@William slevin: join young FF
Build a bunker QUICK
Yes, they are preparing us for emergencies. I’ll never be able to rationalise conspiracy theories.
That’s what THEY want you to think…..
@johnathan smith:”@William slevin: getting extremely triggered and dying on the hill of the conspiracy theorists is very sad. I guess when most conspiracy theorists are far right it might explain your actions….”
My comment was tongue in tongue but many a conspiracy has been proven true especially over the last 3 years….
You do know solicitors and garda are conspiracy theorists as their job when it comes to two or more people conspiring to commit murder or fraud…so you use of the term is rediculouse…
why….who are THEY? Care to explain…
@joe x:”@William slevin: yeah right, You lot are the one’s believing the far right, and I’m the vile one….. one with you Williie”
My comment was said tongue in cheek….but it was your kind politics that produced Hitler, stalin, Mao….so I guess theirs a bit of truth in everything
They have a similar system in Florida, it was very helpful when we were caught up in hurricane Matthew, I was so relieved when the all clear alert pinged on the phone and the TV. I found it a good system.
@Jacqueline McCabe: I agree.
It would be difficult to know whether a hurricane was still ongoing without a text alert.
@Tsa Tsa Watson: Surprisingly it is, the winds and rain are still there but the threat to life is gone.
have your say