“ECONOMIC SECURITY”

Civil aviation authorities had to check every threatened flight; most of these stemmed from messages posted on X, formerly Twitter.

The government warning did not name any social media companies but referred to an advisory notice from the information technology ministry.

“Due to the availability of the ‘forward/reshare/repost/retweet’ option on social media platforms, the scale of dissemination of such fake bomb threats has been observed to be dangerously unlimited.” the ministry of information said.

He said companies should report any crimes “likely to threaten the unity, integrity, sovereignty, security or economic security” of the country and cooperate quickly with government agencies to assist in investigations.

The government said on Monday it was discussing “legislative action” to overhaul aviation and aircraft safety laws and make those who make such threats guilty of a serious or “cognizable” offense with longer potential sentences.

India, the world’s largest democracy, regularly ranks among the top five countries globally for the number of requests made by a government to remove social media content.

Last year, an Indian court fined X $61,000 after the platform unsuccessfully challenged orders to remove tweets and accounts critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.