Rules
Canada's Online News Act changed link sharing for good
Canada Online News Act link sharing, in plain terms: CRTC duties, Meta's news ban and what a compliant disclosure must contain for Canadian readers.
What to take away
- The Online News Act, once Bill C-18, gives the CRTC power to decide which Canadian news businesses are eligible and which platforms must bargain or seek exemption.
- Meta blocked news links for Canadian users on Facebook and Instagram from 1 August 2023, before the main rules came into force.
- An exemption is conditional: the platform funds eligible news, reports annually and keeps records the regulator can demand.
- A platform that loses its exemption falls back into mandatory bargaining, while a news business that misses a filing can drop off the eligible list.
Link sharing in Canada now runs through a regulator, and the parties affected are platforms, news businesses and the CRTC. Knowing who files what separates a working relationship from a violation notice.
Who has jurisdiction over link sharing in Canada
The Online News Act received royal assent in June 2023, and its core provisions took effect on 19 December 2023. Reach is uneven anyway, and what travels versus what stays bound to a platform shows why one service carries a story everywhere while another carries nothing.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission administers the Act and publishes its decisions. The statute reaches platforms that run a digital news intermediary with a significant presence in Canada and a bargaining imbalance with news businesses.
Meta removed news links from Facebook and Instagram for Canadian users on 1 August 2023. Google took the exemption route and later committed funds to a collective of publishers. The Wikipedia article on Canada's Online News Act lists the provisions and the platform responses in order.
What a compliant disclosure contains
A platform applying for an exemption files a package with the CRTC. That package carries the applicant's identity and the services covered, the agreements or funding arrangements made with eligible news businesses, how contributions are administered, and the evidence showing the conditions are met.
Disclosure does not end at approval. Annual reporting is required, and the CRTC can compel records or testimony under oath. Decisions and reasons are published, so the terms of an exemption become public.
Canadian platform rules sit inside a larger argument about what these services do to public life, which Critiques of social media sets out for anyone who wants the counterarguments.
Records a news business must keep
Eligible news businesses carry their own paperwork. The order below follows the sequence the CRTC expects.
- Confirm you meet the qualified Canadian journalism organisation criteria and hold the supporting documents.
- File the notice with the CRTC inside the window set by the regulations.
- Keep every agreement with a platform, plus the invoices and correspondence behind it.
- Report once a year on how funds were used and who received them.
- Retain records for the period the regulator specifies, including after an agreement ends.
None of that depends on a platform's goodwill. It depends on documents you can produce on request.
What happens if a party does not comply
The CRTC can issue a notice of violation and impose an administrative monetary penalty.
The commercial consequence is sharper. A platform that fails to meet its exemption conditions loses the exemption and falls into mandatory bargaining with every eligible news business at once. For a news business the consequence is eligibility. Miss the filing and you are not on the list that platforms must bargain with.
The regulator can also order production of documents. Ignoring a production order is a fresh violation, not an argument.
Where the rules differ by place
| Jurisdiction | Instrument | Effect on news links |
|---|---|---|
| Canada | Online News Act | Bargain or qualify for an exemption; Meta blocked links |
| European Union | Copyright Directive, press publishers' right | Platforms must license press content |
| Australia | News Media Bargaining Code | Designated platforms negotiate, arbitration as backstop |
| United States | Section 230 | No bargaining duty; the platform decides |
In the United States the baseline is discretion rather than obligation, as the text of Section 230 sets out. US platforms answer to that baseline, and What did Section 230 protect for US platforms explains why a link pulled in Canada was never a legal problem south of the border.
Canada also paired the news rules with broadcasting reform. The Online Streaming Act, Canada's other platform statute, covers user-generated content under a separate regime and is often mistaken for C-18.
A link that vanishes for a Canadian reader has not been banned by a court. It is a platform decision made to avoid a regulatory duty.
Example: a small publisher checks its eligible status
A Halifax digital outlet wants to be on the eligible list. It gathers its incorporation records, its journalism tax credit certification and its editorial independence policy, then files the notice.
The platform side is not its decision. Its work is evidence: who owns it, who edits it and where the money goes. If the CRTC asks for a document the outlet cannot produce, the file stalls until it can.
Common questions
Does the Online News Act stop me from posting a news link? Not by itself. The dispute runs between platforms and news businesses. What Canadians saw was Meta choosing to block links rather than bargain.
Can I still share news links on Facebook or Instagram in Canada? News links from Canadian publishers stay unavailable for users in Canada on Meta's services. Other services were never covered in the same way.
Who enforces the rules? The CRTC. It publishes its decisions and can impose penalties for violations.
Has the change shifted where Canadians find news? Feeds and apps now decide what most readers see, and generational digital culture traces how different age groups moved to reading inside apps.
