Critical Amber Alert

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

I keep my phone on my nightstand and I vaguely recall the alarm going off. I went back to sleep immediately.

As did I, because I was hammered.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

Everyone in this thread who's complaining is a ####ing idiot. Parents who steal their kids in the.middle of the night are at high risk of hurting them etc. (murder suicide) so suck it up Sally, it went off. Woke us up. I clicked it off. The end. JFC

More and more people will disable them because of the lack of differentiation between nuclear war and an abducted child. The end. JFC. Why can you not understand this? Nobody with a brain is criticizing the notion of alerts for abductions, merely the implementation. Get off your high horse and actually read what is written here.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Acey

More and more people will disable them because of the lack of differentiation between nuclear war and an abducted child. The end. JFC. Why can you not understand this? Nobody with a brain is criticizing the notion of alerts for abductions, merely the implementation. Get off your high horse and actually read what is written here.

Well, more and more people will spread the myth you can easily disable them, at very least.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Well, more and more people will spread the myth you can easily disable them, at very least.

I don't claim that it's easy on most devices. The bigger risk is people simply ignoring them, turning their phones off, DND, etc. The hilarity is this realization being equated to somehow not caring about abducted children.

I've disabled them and use the AEA app instead, which is far more informative and has much better control of notifications.

[MBates]

Originally Posted by Acey

More and more people will disable them because of the lack of differentiation between nuclear war and an abducted child. The end. JFC. Why can you not understand this? Nobody with a brain is criticizing the notion of alerts for abductions, merely the implementation. Get off your high horse and actually read what is written here.

I appreciate some will think this sounds sanctimonious but when I pull over driving or am woke from sleeping due to the flashing lights and screaming sirens of an emergency vehicle I take it as a brief opportunity to hope whoever is in trouble will be ok and to be grateful it’s not me or my family (that I know of in the moment).

When I got startled awake by the recent amber alert I thought the same things...and then went back to sleep. If our sense of community and empathy has become such that we would rather miss an alert that could directly affect us individually because we are so upset at having to also endure the sound of an occasional alert that can only possibly save children we don’t personally know (and all of their friends and family members from eternal unimaginable grief) then I suppose I can see why this has become such a debate.

I am all for trying to have the best system possible, but disturbing a significant number of people who couldn’t possibly assist the emergency seems inevitable if you are implementing a blanket alert system intended to reach an unknown group of people who can.

To me that’s the ultimate point that gets lost in these debates. If police knew who had most recently seen the missing children, they would just call them directly. But they have a small number of individuals who could have the highest of value information to save lives. Neither the police nor those individuals know who they are unless they can communicate to each other...and the value of the information can drop dramatically over short periods of time.

From my perspective having solid criteria to meet before issuing the alert is the way to limit annoying the public. Once the criteria are met, the public is part of the emergency and the possible difference between life and death. Waking up to the sound of an alert you did not need to hear then becomes one of the costs of being part of a society that benefits from having lifesaving alerts.

[Fuzz]

That's a nice, idealistic view though. If the reality is people find ways of disabling or avoiding the alerts, haven't you just made a less effective alert system?

[Locke]

Once again, I'll clarify my gripe.

Its not being woken up, it was the lack of information in the alert.

Just give the info in the alert.

[Acey]

Originally Posted by MBates

I am all for trying to have the best system possible

So am I. This alert system has tiers of alerts that Alberta has elected not to use, instead sending out presidential alerts for everything instead.

We simply want the implementation to better, which in turn makes it more effective. Including actual usual information in the alert is a component of that, as just said by Locke. It is for that reason that I use the AEA app and have disabled the alerts which, on my device, simply blast a tornado siren and provide no information.

Again, the only fallacy here is equating the desire for a better system with a "lack of empathy".

[MBates]

Originally Posted by Acey

So am I. This alert system has tiers of alerts that Alberta has elected not to use, instead sending out presidential alerts for everything instead.

We simply want the implementation to better, which in turn makes it more effective. Including actual usual information in the alert is a component of that, as just said by Locke. It is for that reason that I use the AEA app and have disabled the alerts which, on my device, simply blast a tornado siren and provide no information.

Again, the only fallacy here is equating the desire for a better system with a "lack of empathy".

I don’t mean to suggest everyone in the debate for changing the system lacks empathy so I take your point. And I cannot argue with the idea that the alert lacking info can be a problem (though the more info the automated voice has to read off the longer the alert so maybe that’s a factor they are trying to manage). But I am saying there is another fallacy which is that the system is definitively improved if it goes out to less people or is on a simple opt out or turn off system.

By the nature of the emergency an abducted child on the move can be hundreds of kilometres away in a short period of time and in any direction. A material witness can not know they witnessed anything until they find out about the emergency. I am not sure how your improvements can account for that.

And keep in mind I am not saying it’s not a blunt imperfect tool. I am saying it is exactly that but there is a reason why it might not make sense to go to great lengths to change that.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Locke

Actually, the part I was complaining about was that it didnt give me any immediate information in the Alert itself.

It made me go through a link for information.

First of all, I'll admit, I'm not a lot of help at 5am anyways, so you gotta help me out here.

Name. Location. Description of Kid and Parent.

You can do this. I know you can.

It's just one click on the notification and it tells you all that. You'd probably have to click the notification open to see all the info anyways even if they did put it in the title because it would be too long.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Smartcar

According to the news there were about 15 tips and the kids were found unharmed in Sylvan Lake so that’s great. But I’d expect the tips all came from people who were awake at 5am. If not then maybe it’s ok to wake ppl up.

How the #### are they supposed to know who is awake and who isn't?

No one is saying this is perfect but there are people isn't this thread with no data, no back up and frankly no idea of what happened the other night other than kids were taken by their mother in the middle of the night and were found safe.

Do you know if the amber alert worked? You are advocating for emotional based decision making instead of data driven decision making cuz guess what, you have no data.

Policy makers have decided that right now this is the best idea we have and they will continue to refine the system but it shouldn't be based on a bunch selfish Albertans who don't want to be disturbed. It should be based on what gets the best results for those in danger.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

That's a nice, idealistic view though. If the reality is people find ways of disabling or avoiding the alerts, haven't you just made a less effective alert system?

But the prior way was no forced messaging to everyone that has a phone, which led to only people watching TV or listening to radio when a child was abducted being notified.

I'm sure they have an astronomically higher chance of getting that critical tip by messaging nearly the entire population with thousands of people going out of their way to make sure emergency services can't disturb them vs the millions not being reached before phone alerts.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

How the #### are they supposed to know who is awake and who isn't?

All it has to do is honour the Do Not Disturb setting on the phone. If it is active, the notification should come through silently.

If the person doesn't use that setting, it would be their own fault if they get woken up by the alert.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by getbak

All it has to do is honour the Do Not Disturb setting on the phone. If it is active, the notification should come through silently.

If the person doesn't use that setting, it would be their own fault if they get woken up by the alert.

Are we certain that tips haven’t came from people with do not disturb on their phone?

Give this system a year, collect the data then evaluate if information would be lost by restricting who the messages go to.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by GGG

Are we certain that tips haven’t came from people with do not disturb on their phone?

Amber Alerts work, but the recovery rate as a direct result of the system as a whole is very low (still a valuable system, even if the "success" rate is in the single digits), but that just means that the likelihood of a recovery coming as a result of a tip from someone asleep with DnD on is approaching zero.

[metallicat]

Originally Posted by Locke

Once again, I'll clarify my gripe.

Its not being woken up, it was the lack of information in the alert.

Just give the info in the alert.

Dude, it was one click. One link. Click it and view the details.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Acey

So am I. This alert system has tiers of alerts that Alberta has elected not to use, instead sending out presidential alerts for everything instead.

We simply want the implementation to better, which in turn makes it more effective. Including actual usual information in the alert is a component of that, as just said by Locke. It is for that reason that I use the AEA app and have disabled the alerts which, on my device, simply blast a tornado siren and provide no information.

Again, the only fallacy here is equating the desire for a better system with a "lack of empathy".

Except that almost every recommendation for how to fix it is based on a lack of empathy. It is basically that you only want to know about emergencies that will affect you, and suggesting that Amber Alerts aren't important enough to be disturbed over. Or people who are still using flip phones and can't seem to touch the link in the alert notificatoin.

[Smartcar]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Except that almost every recommendation for how to fix it is based on a lack of empathy. It is basically that you only want to know about emergencies that will affect you, and suggesting that Amber Alerts aren't important enough to be disturbed over. Or people who are still using flip phones and can't seem to touch the link in the alert notificatoin.

I can't believe this is devolving into a lack of empathy. Someone who was asleep from the time the incident happened until they were jarringly woken up is not going to be helpful. Unless there is evidence that they were, in which case it's worth it, there has to be a better way. Starting with don't override DND settings.

[SebC]

Why do we not empathize with people who are sensitive to sleep disturbances, but still want to know if their house is about to catch fire? Is empathy only for missing children and their parents?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Amber Alerts work, but the recovery rate as a direct result of the system as a whole is very low (still a valuable system, even if the "success" rate is in the single digits), but that just means that the likelihood of a recovery coming as a result of a tip from someone asleep with DnD on is approaching zero.

Originally Posted by Smartcar

I can't believe this is devolving into a lack of empathy. Someone who was asleep from the time the incident happened until they were jarringly woken up is not going to be helpful. Unless there is evidence that they were, in which case it's worth it, there has to be a better way. Starting with don't override DND settings.

So without any evidence you willing to implement a reduction in the number of people notified. Isn’t testing the system as implemented until a reasonable amount of data can be collected and analyses before making changes prudent?