Democracy runs on information people can trust. Today, whichever side you’re on, you have reasons to doubt the news, the platforms and the government itself, and bad actors count on it. The SOURCE Act doesn’t tell anyone what is true. It keeps the government’s hands off lawful speech, shows you who is really talking, labels fakes, and makes deliberate lies that hurt people costly, as far as the First Amendment allows.
No official may pressure a platform, broadcaster or bank to bury lawful speech, and every request about content goes on a public log. Agencies cite their sources, correct their own errors, and can’t secretly pay commentators.
Content paid for by foreign governments is labeled. Paid political posts name the payer. Bots say they’re bots. Realistic AI fakes of real people must carry labels you can actually see, and big AI services build in ‘made by AI’ credentials.
Harassment suits over speech are thrown out early. A publisher that refuses to correct a deliberate lie pays the victim’s lawyers. Lying to take people’s money, or about how to vote, is punished. Opinion, satire and honest mistakes are always protected.
The federal government first: every agency and the White House. Private speakers only in the narrow categories courts have always allowed: who is paying, fraud, impersonation and deliberate harm. Outlets, platforms, AI makers and States can choose to join a fuller Information Trust Standard and earn legal protections in return. No agency gets any power to decide what is true.
You may remember different examples depending on where you sit. The fix is the same.
And both sides remember a fake AI voice of a President telling voters to stay home, and Russian state money secretly funding American creators. The lesson is the same: only 28% of Americans now trust the mass media, 8% of Republicans and 51% of Democrats. Rules that only one side trusts last until the other side wins.
Manipulators don’t need you to believe their lie. They only need you to stop believing anything, so the loudest or best-funded voice wins. Every other decision a citizen makes, about a vote, a vaccine or a cause, depends on knowing where information comes from. Here is what has gone wrong, from both directions, and what the act does about each.
The color on the left edge shows whose worry it mostly was. Each side’s trust fell after a different set of failures, and each blames the other’s sources.
The act has 10 packages in two parts: six that are binding law (the Trust Floor) and four that outlets, platforms, AI and device makers, and States choose to join (the Information Trust Standard). Together they keep six promises. Tap a number to read the package behind it.
The First Amendment rightly limits what Congress can require of private speakers. So the binding part of the act mostly binds the government itself, and reaches private speakers only where courts have always allowed: who is paying, fraud, impersonation and deliberate harm. Everything about how news is labeled or feeds are run is a standard each outlet or platform chooses.
Why they would join: each package offers protection that is worth real money, from lower libel exposure to a single national rule. Why they can’t cherry-pick: the protection comes only with every practice in the package, and the government never judges content, only whether the practices are followed.
No agency, board or contractor gets power over what anyone says. Every finding that a statement is unlawful is made by a court, under the narrow sections of the act, after a fair hearing.
SOURCE is a companion to the Public Trust Act, whose Package 13 shows who pays for political ads, Package 15 protects statistics and science from political pressure, Package 19 bars government retaliation for speech, journalism or research, and Package 2 covers payments to sitting officials. For the CLEAR Act, SOURCE now holds a single set of rules on government pressure and AI fakes, for all lawful speech, all year, while CLEAR keeps its election-season extras: faster publication of requests and quicker court orders against fakes of candidates, and warnings to election officials. SOURCE doesn’t repeat the rest.
Your choices stay in your browser. Use them in step 6 to write to your representatives.
Binding on the federal government, and on private speakers only where courts have always allowed. Each applies the same way whichever party is in power.
These apply only to outlets, platforms, makers and States that join. Checking one means you’d want them offered and would like to see your outlets, platforms and State join.
You’ll hear this proposal praised and attacked, sometimes by people who haven’t read it. Here is how each side is likely to talk about it, the strongest honest criticisms, and the answers.
Each criticism is stated in its strongest honest form. This proposal was tested against every one of them before publication.
Expect different messengers to cheer different packages and attack others. Knowing who stands to gain or lose helps you read the coverage.
| Messenger | Likely to support | Likely to attack | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Right-leaning cable, talk radio and websites | The ban on government pressure, the public log, ‘show your basis’ for disinformation claims, no blacklists | Paid-post disclosure, the Foreign Influence Center | Calling the whole act a ‘censorship bill’ because of its name |
| Left-leaning cable, podcasts and websites | Broadcast neutrality, foreign-content labels, deepfake liability, penalties for deliberate lies | Leaving Section 230 alone; limits on officials contacting platforms | Calling the act ‘toothless’ for not policing misinformation |
| Independent podcasters and creators | No pressure on platforms, fair process, user-chosen feeds | Paid-post disclosure (for sponsored political content) | Clips that skip the $1,000 threshold and the ‘payer only’ rule |
| Large platforms | One national rule, liability protection | Researcher access, ad libraries, appeals deadlines | ‘Security’ objections that are really about secrecy |
| AI companies | A single national labeling rule; safe harbor for members | Mandatory credentials for the largest services | Claims that provenance is impossible; open standards already exist |
| Press-freedom groups | Anti-SLAPP, broadcast neutrality, media-deal rules | Fee-shifting and truth judgments | Useful detailed critiques; read them |
| Foreign state media and their proxies | Nothing | Foreign-content labels and the covert-operations crime | Stories framing the act as ‘American censorship’ |
Whatever party they belong to. A yes should mean the same thing when their own party holds power.
Short, personal messages that name specific reforms get noticed. Your message below uses the reforms you checked in step 4.
Send the page, or copy a one-page summary to paste into an email, a post or a document you can print.
Part 1 is the Trust Floor, which is binding law. Part 2 is the Information Trust Standard, which outlets, platforms, makers and States choose to join. Open any package to see what it does, why, what critics say, and the bill text itself.
Created by a deeply concerned citizen with the help of generative AI tools.
This page is the public summary of a citizens’ proposal called the SOURCE Act, formally the Information Trust Act. It has not been introduced in Congress. The draft legislative text still needs review by First Amendment and media lawyers on the left and right, by press-freedom and civil-liberties groups, by technologists, and cost estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
It is a companion to the Public Trust Act, which sets the same rules for every official, the STEADY Act on money and prices, the LEVEL Act on the courts, and the CLEAR Act on elections. All five work under today’s Constitution.
It was published days before the November 3, 2026 midterm elections. Nothing here is about who should win them, and none of it would apply to them.
Content matches the plan draft v0.2 of November 1, 2026. Facts are sourced below; the type of each source is noted so you can judge it yourself.
To every Senator and Representative, of every party:
Your constituents no longer trust what they read, watch or hear, and each side can name the moments that taught it to doubt: a government that leaned on platforms, a network that aired false claims, intelligence officials who vouched for a theory, a foreign troll farm, a fake voice of a President. Bad actors at home and abroad count on that doubt. When citizens can’t tell sourced fact from opinion or fabrication, the loudest and best-funded voice wins.
The SOURCE Act asks you to fix the rules, not to win the argument. Keep the government’s hands off lawful speech, and put every request to a platform on the record. Make the government show its sources and correct its errors. Show who is really talking: foreign governments, paid promoters and bots. Label fakes of real people where people can see them. Make deliberate, harmful lies costly in the narrow ways the Constitution allows, and never let any agency decide what is true.
Each package can pass on its own. We ask you to co-sponsor them with a member of the other party, to keep supporting them when your party holds power, and to tell us publicly where you stand on each one.
Respectfully,
Your constituents
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