Foreign Propaganda Disclosure Act

Key Points

• The bill amends the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) so that social media influencers count as foreign agents if they meet the law's other criteria, expanding a decades-old disclosure law to cover online creators.
• It defines a 'social media influencer' broadly as anyone with a monetized account on any social media platform, meaning the rule could apply to creators on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and similar sites.
• The bill borrows its definition of 'social media platform' from an existing federal law on trafficking prevention, rather than writing a new definition from scratch.
• The goal, based on FARA's existing purpose, is to force disclosure when influencers are paid by foreign governments or foreign political parties to promote messages to American audiences, so viewers know when content is foreign-funded.
• Because this bill only edits FARA's definitions section, it relies on FARA's existing enforcement and penalty structure rather than creating new penalties of its own.