OTTAWA — The federal government released its draft regulations Friday morning for implementing the Online News Act, the law requiring Google and Facebook to pay Canadian news outlets if they carry links to the outlets’ content.

Here’s what you need to know.

Only Google and Facebook qualify. At least, as far as the Department of Canadian Heritage is aware. The regulations apply the law to search engines and social networks with global revenues of at least $1 billion a year and at least 20 million unique Canadian visits a month. Operators of such sites will have to tell the government upon reaching the threshold.

In a technical briefing Friday—given on condition that journalists not identify the speakers—a government official said they might hear from Facebook owner Meta about Facebook’s sister platform Instagram, but aren’t sure. Microsoft’s Bing search engine is below the qualifying line but probably the next closest.

Of course, they’d also have to link to news, which both Google and Meta say they’ve stopped doing or will.

The companies would have to pay about $232 million. Qualifying platforms would have to pay four per cent of Canadian revenues to Canadian news sites. By the feds’ math, that would mean about $172 million from Google and $60 million to $62 million from Facebook.

There’s an escape hatch. Platforms could be exempted if they reach their own deals with news outlets that add up to at least the four per cent figure. Non-monetary contributions can be included, if both sides agree on their value, and the official said the deals could put dollar figures on the eyes Google and Facebook send to Canadian sites.

How much could that be? Last year, Meta said links from Facebook feeds were worth more than $230 million to Canadian news sites.

Meta is not soothed. The law is fundamentally flawed and the regulations don’t fix it, Meta Canada’s public policy head Rachel Curran wrote in an emailed statement. Therefore, “today’s proposed regulations will not impact our business decision to end news availability in Canada.”

Google might be. “We’re carefully reviewing the proposed regulations to assess whether they resolve the serious structural issues with [the law] that regrettably were not dealt with during the legislative process,” Google spokesperson Shay Purdy wrote.