ATLANTA — It could soon become harder for those social media sites that feature mugshots and police videos to get them.
The legislature is considering a “bodycam bill.” It was designed to stop social media sites from posting thousands of mugshots of people charged with minor infractions.
But it had an unintended consequence of making it harder for news to get them.
“It’s going to say that the days of companies profiting off your misery are going to be over in Georgia,” said State Sen. Brian Strickland.
Strickland wanted to protect people like Bowen Mendelson.
Channel 2 Action News interviewed Mendelson last year after a social media site posted his mugshot.
His only infraction was failure to appear in court for an expired tag. He told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot that it made him “look like a criminal.”
Strickland’s bill would make it harder for those sites to get a hold of these mugshots and of police body cam video.
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The problem was, said Randy Gravely of the Georgia Association of Broadcasters, it inadvertently made it harder for news organizations to get them, too.
So both sides negotiated for weeks to find a compromise, and on Thursday, they found a way for credentialed media to get access while freezing others out.
“We may not totally 100% support the bill, but we think it’s a great compromise. And it lands us at a place we can continue doing the work as you do each and every day,” Gravely said.
News organizations rely on mugshots and police body cam video to report facts. But some opponents don’t like the compromise.
“Individual people should be able to request that information as well. Activist organizations and social justice organizations should all have access to this type of footage,” said Sarah Hung-Blackwell with the ACLU of Atlanta.
Strickland thinks the compromise works.
“People won’t be profiting off that. People can’t go and just get that and post it on YouTube to make money,” Strickland said.
After all that work, the bill passed out of committee with a unanimous vote. It now heads to the full House for a vote.
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