The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in an advisory to all social media intermediaries on October 25, has directed the platforms to remove fake bomb threats and inform the same to the appropriate law enforcement agency as per provisions of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023.
The ministry noted that these sites have the legal requirement to respond with information that will facilitate the identification of persons behind such threats within 72 hours.
The advisory also highlights the new expectations of their performance for the social media companies to convey and address the possibility of misinformation that may pose a threat to India’s unity, integrity, sovereignty or economy. This it goes further to state that intermediaries have to provide offences that users of the platform have conducted or threats that are likely to cause public harm. Not only the BNSS, but these rules also provide that these platforms must cooperate with investigation and government cybersecurity agencies, necessitating compliance in terms of the prescribed time.
These are the penalties that any violators of these laws face: It notes that while the safe harbour protections will now robustly protect the social media firms from user-generated content posted online, where this content poses a threat to public order or security, the firms will not be protected for delay in removal of such content. In such cases, these websites and other intermediaries could also stand a legal ripe under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and the Information Technology Act.
This advisory was released after MeitY met with top officials from several platforms such as X or Twitter, Meta, Google, and Telegram. Sanket Bhondve, in particular, has appealed to X to be aware of the consequences of not taking action in reference to the site being considered an accomplice in terms of hoax bomb threat issues. The message from MeitY is clear: social media platform providers must wake up and work hard to adapt and decrease the risks related to hoax threats under legal requirements to uphold safety for everyone.
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