Early that afternoon, the alert system at Auburn University blasted out three emergency alerts making extraordinary claims: that there had been an active shooter, a tornado, and a hazardous waste spill all within minutes of each other. “AN ALERT: THERE IS AN ACTIVE SHOOTER ON THE CAMPUS. It was indeed not a drill, but instead a false alarm — as were all the other alerts. In 2020, millions of people in Ontario, Canada, were woken up with blaring emergency alerts on their phone stating that there had been an “incident” at a nearby nuclear plant. For who knows: maybe there really is a toxic tornado raging towards campus with guns akimbo.