MeitY warns social media cos to remove hoax bomb threats or else be held liable
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY)'s advisory also asked social media platforms to provide information on the matter to law enforcement agencies within 72 hours.
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After more than 200 airlines operating in India have received multiple hoax bomb threats through various social media intermediaries, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued an advisory to the platforms.
According to the advisory, the social media intermediaries should remove hoax bomb threats from their platform within the prescribed legal timeframe and report them to the government agencies concerned.
The intermediaries are also supposed to share information with the law enforcement authorities within 72 hours, or they could be held liable for consequential actions under Indian laws.
On October 23, the Central government pulled up microblogging site X (earlier Twitter) for facilitating the dissemination of hoaxes amidst a series of bomb threats directed at airlines in the past week.
In a virtual meeting led by Joint Secretary Sanket S Bhondve, representatives from airlines and social media companies, including X and Meta, were questioned about their responses to the spread of false information.
"It should be noted that intermediaries, including social media intermediaries have a due diligence obligation under the Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act”) and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (“IT Rules, 2021”) to promptly remove such misinformation that affects public order and security of the state," the advisory has said.
In case of failure of the intermediaries to observe the due diligence obligations as provided in the IT Rules, the provision of section 79 of the IT Act shall not be applicable to such intermediary and they shall be liable for consequential action as provided under any law including the IT Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 (“BNS”), it was added.
Through the advisory, the Ministry has emphasised that all the intermediaries including social media intermediaries must make reasonable efforts to disallow such malicious acts including hoax bomb threats from being disseminated on their platforms.
On October 22, multiple Indian airlines, including Air India, Akasa Air, Vistara and IndiGo faced a surge in bomb threats, with nearly 50 flights affected.
Overall, in 12 days, more than 275 flights operated by the Indian carriers have received hoax bomb threats. Most of the threats were issued through social media.
