[Rocka24]

I wonder if they could send the messages to certain counties that are actually relevant to the "breaking" news. Geography based sorting of phone numbers to what I assume must be addresses could be a security issue though so not entirely sure. A better solution could be alert settings that would alert for violent crimes/amber alerts/natural disasters(which should never have the option to be disabled) and maybe a downtime period during the night similar to do not disturb mode on iOS devices that only have exceptions for natural disasters. A system that robust would need integration with individual phone manufacturers like airplane mode which has proven to be efficient.

[mook]

They can limit messages based on which cell towers you're connected to.

Of course, over here they do Amber Alerts on the main emergency channel for things the next state over instead…

[Rocka24]

I wonder if folks get amber alerts if they only use satellite based connectivity. I'm willing to be that Apple will have it automatically enabled in iOS 18.

[bigiain]

They can do that here in Australia.

I've had 6 SMS messages from the Police in the last 12 months, all for missing persons, every singe one of which is in my suburb or an adjacent one.

But cops are gonna cop. I'd bet if they were chasing someone who'd shot a cop they'd SMS blast the entire country, because fuck you civilians!

ACAB