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On 30 November 2016, New York Magazine published the first of several articles reporting that as of 20 January 2017, President Donald Trump would acquire the ability to send unblockable text messages to all American citizens: The article's author went on to underscore the highly speculative nature of the claim: Although the initial version of the story made it clear that the claims were highly speculative and based on a possibility (not an actual vested power handed over to Trump on Inauguration Day), CNet published an article that did not include that particular context: Although media speculation held that Trump could (and implicitly would) use the WEA frivolously to annoy Americans with insults in the middle of the night, the Federal Communications Commission explicitly states the system is for use in emergencies only: The portion used to tie Trump to the claim specified that the only unblockable texts are emergency alerts directly from the President: The FCC announced that FEMA would be conducting a test of the system at 11:18 AM PDT (2:18 PM EDT) on Wednesday, 3 October 2018, although the test might take a few minutes to make it to all cellphones: Although it is true that an FCC emergency alert system function enables any sitting president to send emergency texts to all Americans (and that only messages from the president cannot be blocked), any other information is pure speculation: nothing substantiates the idea that President Trump intends to misuse the system, or that the FCC would allow him to do so.
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