CNN Notification Repeatedly Spamming iPhones Via Apple News

Apple News users were spammed with the same notification dozens of times this afternoon in what appears to have been a short-lived glitch with the popular news aggregation app for iPhones.

A notification from CNN regarding a story about the firing of the worker who triggered a false missile warning in Hawaii earlier this month was pushed through Apple News continuously in about 10 second intervals. Some users complained about receiving the notification more than 30 times.

The problem started around 5 p.m. EST, when the first notification for the CNN story was sent through Apple News. The problem persisted for the better part of the next half-hour or so before the notifications finally ceased.

The story being pushed through the notification was from CNN and was—somewhat ironically—about the false notification about a missile strike in Hawaii that caused a panic earlier this month.

"The worker who triggered Hawaii's false ballistic missile alert has been fired. An FCC report says he thought the attack was real,” the notification read.

Much to the chagrin of iPhone users, the notification kept coming. It appeared about every 10 seconds. Clearing the notification did not prevent a new notification from coming in. Opening the news story provided a brief respite from the continuous updates but as soon as the story was closed, the notification would return—along with a sound or vibration each time it arrived.

More than likely, the issue stems from the Apple News app itself. Publishers have tools to write and publish stories within the Apple News interface but do not have direct control over stories that are pushed out to readers.

Apple News user opt in to news notifications, which Apple curates based on trending stories and breaking news—a feature that was added with the introduction of iOS 10 in 2016.

International Business Times reached out to Apple for explanation about the notification issue but did not receive a response at the time of publication. Apple eventually clarifed the issue in a tweet, stating, "We’re working to fix an Apple News issue that caused some users to receive duplicate notifications. We apologize for the inconvenience this caused."

How To Turn Off Apple News Notifications

In case such an incident occurs again, users can quickly turn off notifications from the Apple News app in a number of ways.

The notifications from the app can be turned off entirely by going to the Settings application, opening the Notifications menu, scrolling down to the News app and toggling the notifications off. This will prevent the app from providing any notifications.

If the issue stems from a single source—like in the case of the CNN notification—users can opt out of notifications from the specific publisher by going into the Apple News app and opening the Following menu from the menu bar across the bottom of the screen.

Scroll down to the publication and tap the notification bell icon next to the publication name. Once the icon is gray instead of blue, Apple News will no longer send push notifications from that publisher.