The spate of fake bomb threats issued to airlines poses a threat to public order, the Centre has told social media platforms while ordering them to remove such misinformation at the earliest.

It has also warned the platforms that the exemption available to them for third-party content as intermediaries under the Information Technology Act will not apply if they don’t follow their due diligence obligations or aid in committing an unlawful act. 

In an advisory sent on Friday, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said air travellers and security agencies have been affected because of the hoax bomb threats, which have disrupted the normal operations of airlines. 

“Such hoax bomb threats, while affecting a large number of citizens, also destabilise the economic security of the country. 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 the social media platforms. Such hoax bomb threats are mostly misinformation that is massively disrupting public order, operations of airlines and security of the airline travellers,” the ministry said in the advisory. 
 

Political parties in Maharashtra are finalising their candidates ahead of the October 29 nomination deadline for the assembly elections in the state. The BJP, Congress, and NCP (Sharad Pawar) have released additional lists of candidates, with the BJP announcing 22 candidates, Congress 23, and NCP 22, ahead of the November 20 polls.

The external affairs ministry said the current spate of hostilities in West Asia are to nobody’s benefit and urged parties involved to pursue diplomatic solutions.