Rules
Canada Online News Act algorithm: how news visibility changed for publishers
Canada Online News Act algorithm rules put news visibility in the CRTC's hands, with disclosure duties and records platforms in Canada must keep.
What to take away
- The Online News Act, known as Bill C-18, gives the CRTC authority over how large platforms deal with Canadian news businesses.
- Designated platforms must describe how news is distributed and keep records that prove it.
- Meta pulled news links from Facebook and Instagram in Canada rather than bargain. Google took an exemption that routes money to news.
- The CRTC can demand records, order talks and penalise non-compliance.
- Canada compels payment for news. Section 230 in the United States grants immunity, so the two systems pull in opposite directions.
The Online News Act received royal assent in June 2023 and came into force that December. It hands the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission the job of designating platforms and overseeing the bargain between them and news businesses. Canadian Heritage sets the policy. The CRTC writes and enforces the paperwork. A platform becomes designated because of its size and its role as a news intermediary, not because a publisher complains.
Traffic that vanishes overnight is not always a technical failure. A deliberate removal and a platform outage look alike in a dashboard, and the difference matters when you decide whether to wait or to rebuild your referral base.
Meta and Google were the two that mattered. Both were expected to fall inside the designation. Their responses split. Meta stopped carrying news links. Google stayed and negotiated.
Who holds jurisdiction
The full text of the Online News Act sets out the powers. The CRTC is the body that uses them. The commission designates platforms, publishes the rules for bargaining, and reviews whether an exemption should stand. Provincial governments have no say over how a feed ranks a story. That authority is federal and sits with one regulator.
What a platform has to disclose
A designated platform must tell the CRTC which services carry news, describe how that news is made available, and explain how a news business can request bargaining. The filing is factual. It is not marketing copy, and the commission can test it against the platform's own distribution data.
What a publisher sees as a ban is one setting inside a ranking system. Feed algorithms compared explains how those systems differ, which helps when a single change is described as an algorithm update.
A compliant disclosure contains the operator's identity, the services that carry news, a plain description of how news is surfaced, and the route a publisher follows to open bargaining.
| Disclosure item | What it covers | Who holds it |
|---|---|---|
| Service notice | Which services carry news content | Platform operator |
| Distribution description | How news is ranked and surfaced | Platform operator |
| Bargaining route | How a news business opens talks | Platform and CRTC |
| Complaint log | Where a dispute goes and its outcome | CRTC and platform |
Example: a disclosure that holds up
A publisher asked for the ranking factors behind its news posts. The platform's answer named the service, described the feed, and pointed to the bargaining form. It did not name a ranking weight. That level of detail met the filing requirement, because the Act asks for process, not a formula.
Four steps cover most of it:
- Name the operator and the service that carries news.
- Describe how news content is surfaced and ranked.
- Record each bargaining request with its date and channel.
- Log complaints and the reply given.
Records to keep
Keep the service notice, the distribution description, each bargaining request, and every reply. Keep exemption filings and the evidence behind them. Retention should run for as long as the commission can review the period, and longer if a complaint is open.
What happens after non-compliance
The CRTC can order a platform into bargaining, demand further records, or set a penalty. It can also revoke an exemption, which removes the platform's protection from the bargaining framework. Meta chose to stop linking to news rather than comply, and that choice reshaped referral traffic across the country.
Reading a feature update announcement is different from reading a regulatory filing. One describes intent. The other creates a duty, and the duty outlasts the announcement.
Non-compliance by a news business carries its own cost. A publisher that misses a required filing can be left outside the process, with no route to a share of any fund.
Where the rules differ by place
Canada's model compels payment. Section 230 in the United States does the opposite. It shields platforms from liability for what users post and creates no duty to pay publishers. Australia's News Media Bargaining Code came first and uses similar designation logic, though its thresholds and regulator differ.
The Canadian Heritage page on online news tracks how the government frames the Act and the platforms it covers.
Provincial differences are real but narrow. Quebec's French-language market draws specific mention in the Act's purpose clause, and francophone publishers say the visibility loss hit them harder. No province regulates the feed itself.
Announcements arrive without warning, so tracking platform trends matters more than any single statement from a platform.
The background on the Online News Act covers how the bill moved from a bargaining idea to a signed exemption for one platform and a block from another.
Common questions
Does the Online News Act force platforms to carry news? No. It sets a bargaining duty and an exemption route. A platform can withdraw news links instead, which is what Meta did.
Who enforces the rules? The CRTC handles designation, disclosure and complaints. Canadian Heritage owns the policy but does not run enforcement.
What must a disclosure contain? The operator's identity, the services that carry news, how news is surfaced, and the route to start bargaining. Process, not ranking weights.
Do the rules apply outside Canada? The duties fall on designated platforms that carry Canadian news, wherever the company sits. Provincial governments have no role in ranking decisions.
