Centre Directs Social Media Platforms to Remove Hoax Bomb Threat Content

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has directed social media platforms to intensify efforts to prevent the spread of hoax bomb threats and other malicious activities on their platforms.

The advisory instructs social media companies to uphold their due diligence responsibilities and urges swift removal of any misinformation that threatens public order and state security.

The ministry stated, "Social media platforms must immediately take necessary action under the IT Rules, 2021, ensuring that no user is permitted to host, upload, disseminate, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any unlawful or false information."

The ministry raised concerns over the rapid spread of such hoaxes, noting that “forwarding, re-sharing, re-posting, and re-tweeting” features have enabled a broad, uncontrolled dissemination of these threats. According to the advisory, these hoax bomb threats are often misleading and pose significant disruptions to public order, airline operations, and the safety of travelers.

“Further, the scale of spread of such hoax bomb threats has been observed to be dangerously unrestrained due to the availability of the option of “forwarding/re-sharing/ re-posting/ re-tweeting” on social media platforms. Such hoax bomb threats are mostly misinformation that is massively disrupting the public order, operations of airlines and security of the airline travellers,” the ministry said in its advisory.

In addition to content removal, the government emphasized that social media intermediaries are expected to cooperate fully with authorized agencies investigating these threats. This includes providing information critical for the “prevention, detection, investigation, or prosecution” of such offenses under applicable laws.

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