By On Monday evening, David Cameron pledged to veto new EU laws to scrap porn filters introduced in the UK in July 2013.
According to Cameron, he ‘spluttered over his cornflakes’ after reading that the new EU rules would render the filters unlawful.
Spurred on by a Daily Mail campaign, internet firms were told to install voluntary filters that would require customers to ‘opt in’ to view pornographic material.
On Tuesday however, the European Parliament voted for a new law dictating that internet companies must not interfere with any online traffic – providing that it is legal.
As a result, current filters would need to be dismantled by April next year.
Conservative response
Speaking to the Commons, Cameron added that, “I can tell the House that we will legislate to put our agreement with internet companies on this issue into the law of the land so that our children will be protected.” He said, “we secured an opt-out yesterday.”
The legislation stated that companies must, “treat all traffic equally, without discrimination, restriction or interference,” despite a Downing Street official later claiming that nothing would change come April 2016.
The Daily Mail also issued a statement by its spokesperson: “This means that if we need to we will bring in our own domestic law to retain the existing filtering systems the ISPs have put in place.”
Part of the ruling however, is designed to cut roaming charges across Europe, meaning that holidaymakers will save on costs when travelling abroad.
So what does the ruling actually mean?
It gets murky. Porn filters weren’t the only subject up for debate, as net neutrality was also a key issue in the ruling.
Unfortunately for its supporters, the European Parliament voted in favour of creating internet “fast and slow lanes” in order to encourage innovation within the EU.
During the debate that took place earlier in the day, only 50 out of 751 members participated, with 500 later voting in favour.
Green MEP, Jan Philipp Albrecht labelled the final result a “dirty deal,” with others calling the abolition of roaming charges a carrot in an otherwise unpopular deal.
Writing for Artechnica, Glyn Moody says that:
“This long-overdue, and highly-popular measure was cleverly offered as a carrot by the Council of the EU and the European Commission in order to persuade MEPs to accept the rest of the package.
“The misleading impression was given that supporting the net neutrality amendments proposed by MEPs would cause the abolition of roaming charges to be lost, but that was not the case.”
Other MEPs have pointed out that the Telecoms Single Market package does not even deliver on roaming, as if the review of pricing patterns is completed by the June 2017 deadline, changes will only be made up until a “fair use” limit.
However, there is still time for change, as Anne Jellema, CEO of the Web Foundation writes that all is not lost:
“The European Parliament is essentially tossing a hot potato to the Body of European Regulators, national regulators and the courts, who will have to decide how these spectacularly unclear rules will be implemented.
“The onus is now on these groups to heed the call of hundreds of thousands of concerned citizens and prevent a two-speed Internet.”
We shall see.