PETITION TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
In Support of the Restoration and Strengthening of the Fairness Doctrine

TO: Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives
FROM: The Undersigned U.S. Residents
RE: Legislation to Establish Criminal Accountability for Intentional Public Disinformation

We, the undersigned, respectfully petition the United States Congress to act immediately and decisively to restore and significantly strengthen the Fairness Doctrine, and to enact new federal legislation establishing enforceable criminal accountability for individuals and organizations that knowingly and intentionally spread disinformation to the American public through broadcast, cable, streaming, social media, and digital platforms.

The Problem
The repeal of the original Fairness Doctrine in 1987 did not create a freer press. It created a commercially incentivized market for deliberate falsehood. In the decades since, the deliberate and knowing spread of disinformation through American media has contributed directly to:

The erosion of shared civic truth and a common factual baseline necessary for democratic self-governance
Documented public health crises driven by knowingly false medical and scientific claims
Election interference through the deliberate fabrication of false information about voting procedures, eligibility, locations, and results
Acts of political violence and civil unrest directly inspired by content that was knowingly false at the time of broadcast

The systematic harassment and disruption of private businesses, individuals, and communities by audiences deliberately mobilized through fabricated or deceptively edited content
The financial enrichment of media personalities, networks, and platforms whose business models depend on manufacturing outrage through lies

These are not failures of opinion or errors of judgment. They are the foreseeable and documented consequences of knowingly false content distributed at scale for profit and influence. Current law provides no meaningful deterrent. That must change.

What We Are Asking For
We call on Congress to enact legislation that accomplishes the following:
1. Restore and Expand the Fairness Doctrine
Extend the Fairness Doctrine's jurisdiction beyond legacy broadcast to include cable news networks, streaming platforms, podcasts with significant U.S. audiences, social media platforms, and digital news outlets. Require that all covered entities present controversial matters of public importance in a honest, equitable, and factually grounded manner, with enforceable correction requirements for demonstrably false statements.

2. Establish Criminal Penalties for Knowing Disinformation
Create a federal criminal statute making it a felony to knowingly and intentionally broadcast, publish, or distribute demonstrably false information to a public audience where the person or organization knew the information to be false at the time of distribution and where such distribution caused or was reasonably likely to cause measurable public harm. This statute must include:

Mandatory minimum incarceration of no fewer than 18 months for a first offense
Escalating mandatory minimums for repeat offenses, with no judicial discretion to waive minimums
Personal fines commensurate with the financial benefit derived from the disinformation
A public harm enhancement adding no fewer than 5 years for disinformation directly linked to violence, public health impact, or election interference

3. Establish Organizational Liability
Hold media networks, broadcasting companies, and digital platforms legally and financially liable when they knowingly distribute, amplify, or fail to correct demonstrably false content, including through algorithmic recommendation systems. Penalties for organizations must include:

Substantial financial penalties scaled to annual revenue
Mandatory third-party editorial oversight for repeat offenders
Revocation of federal broadcast licenses for organizations demonstrating a pattern of knowing disinformation
Personal criminal liability for executive leadership on pattern violations

4. Include All Modern Vectors of Disinformation
The legislation must explicitly cover: broadcast and cable television, terrestrial and satellite radio, social media platforms, streaming audio and video, digital news publications, algorithmically amplified content, and any coordinated campaign that uses false content to mobilize audiences to disrupt, harass, or damage private businesses, individuals, or communities without their consent.

5. Empower and Fund Enforcement
Fully empower the Federal Communications Commission with expanded investigative authority, a dedicated disinformation enforcement division, and a formal criminal referral pathway to the Department of Justice. Adequate funding must be appropriated to make enforcement real, consistent, and immune to political interference.

6. Protect Genuine Free Speech
We affirm that this legislation must be carefully and precisely scoped to target only knowing, intentional falsehood — not opinion, satire, commentary, or good-faith reporting that contains errors. The First Amendment protects the right to speak. It does not protect the right to knowingly defraud the public. These are not the same thing, and the law must reflect that distinction clearly.

Why This Is Not a Partisan Issue
Disinformation does not serve any political party or ideology — it corrupts all of them. It has been used to deceive conservatives and liberals alike, to manufacture crises that never existed, and to suppress facts that every American deserves to know. The right to navigate reality clearly — to make decisions about health, elections, and community based on what is actually true — is not a political position. It is a prerequisite for democratic life.
We are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and members of every other political tradition. We are united not by party but by the conviction that a functioning democracy requires a minimum threshold of shared truth, and that the law must defend that threshold.

Our Demand
We demand that Congress treat the deliberate, knowing spread of disinformation as what it is: fraud perpetrated against the American people. We demand legislation with real teeth — criminal penalties, mandatory minimums, organizational liability, and a fully empowered enforcement body. We demand that this legislation apply equally and without exception to all individuals, networks, and platforms regardless of political alignment, viewership, or influence.

Words have consequences. Lies told to millions have catastrophic consequences. It is past time for the law to say so clearly.
We, the undersigned, add our names to this record and call on Congress to act.

This petition was organized by Propaganda Gets You Time, a nonpartisan civic accountability initiative. No personally identifying information will be shared with any congressional office, government body, or third party. Anonymized aggregate data — including state representation and general demographic information — will be shared with congressional offices to demonstrate the breadth of constituent demand for this legislation.