According to a post on its site, “The Online News Act puts massive funding behind an entirely secret process in which government ministries decide who qualifies as real news organizations, and big online platforms decide what kind of news gets the support.

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            The organization has launched a campaign urging people to email their MP and ask them to go back to the drawing board on Bill C-18. It objects to a Link Tax – charging money for sharing links to quality news online— and claims the bill creates new problems for the news industry, including:

• A secret government process for deciding what is a news organization is and what is not

• A secret deal-making process for online platforms to decide the type of news to fund, and how much to provide

• Discouraging sharing of links to quality journalism, allowing misinformation to spread

• Awarding most funds to news conglomerates, while doing nothing for local news