Post #4126636

@harper@toot.cat the national test is a Critical AusAlert which is (allegedly) not able to be turned off – the info is on the page I linked that app looks like it allows you to disable Priority, State / Local test, & Exercise alerts, but it doesn’t seem to have a toggle for Critical alerts (I assume by design), so it may not do what you’re expecting it to do to avoid receiving a critical, you (allegedly) need to turn your device off or put it in airplane mode until about an hour after the alert is issued (the rest of this is a general statement of my position, not a criticism of you)     critical warning systems are deliberately designed to get as many people’s attention as possible in an actual life-threatening event, which IMO is a Good Thing™ – so long as it’s only used in practice for genuinely life-threatening emergencies & the government doesn’t fuck it up by using critical alerts for non-critical things 🤞 whether we live or die in genuinely extreme circumstances can depend on whether the people around us are aware of the problem & able to act together for mutual assistance – if lots of people find ways to disable the critical alerts then they reduce the chances of survival not just for themselves but for others as well some people will of course have valid reasons to try to disable or avoid the test alerts (e.g. people who care for those with extreme sensitivity to jarring sounds, etc.) but I really hope that people don’t routinely disable the alerts just because they can or for trivial reasons like “but what if I might be giving a sales pitch to a potential client and the tsunami warning^ would interrupt it…?”       ^ deliberately chosen as one of the least-likely life-threatening events for Australians 🙃