A new bill in the Washington state Senate would crack down on social media extortion.
The bill received a brief hearing before the Senate Law and Justice Committee Tuesday. It would categorize extortion via social media as a felony.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Hans Zeiger (R-Pierce County), gave the example of a Puyallup restaurant owner who experienced dozens of negative reviews of his establishment shortly after it opened on his social media pages. The information also had many inaccuracies, including the location of the business and actual meals that were served.
“Then the restaurant manager noticed Facebook messages directed at him one day that said the following. We make bad reviews of you guys. We will continue to do so. We will make Google and Facebook reviews. We will remove all bad reviews away if you pay $900,” Zeiger said.
The bad reviews came from Romania. Zeiger said the manager tried to get law enforcement involved as well as the social media platforms, without any luck. He says this proposed bill would be able to resolve such issues.
“It creates a crime of social media extortion as a class C felony, and it also requires social media providers to remove posts within 24 hours of a police report that indicates an incident of social media extortion. The allegation has to include a copy of the actual threat to be valid,” he said.
No one testified against the bill. It was scheduled for a vote in the Law and Justice Committee Thursday, but didn't receive one.