A UK porn ban is coming into effect and the internet is reacting exactly as you would expect

It has been murmured about for quite some time and politicians and fought for it for years but, after several delays, the inevitable has finally happened.

Yes, the government has announced that from July 15, all internet users will have to prove they are over the age of 18 in order to view pornographic material online.

The new rules mean that porn website will have to carry out 'robust age-verification checks on users', which could mean users entering their personal details into an online database or buying a pass from a newsagent.

According to the government, these rules have been introduced in order to prevent children or those underage the age of 18 from seeing adult content, which is deemed to be readily available online.

In a press statement, the minister for digital Margot James said:

Adult content is currently far too easy for children to access online. 

The introduction of mandatory age-verification is a world-first, and we’ve taken the time to balance privacy concerns with the need to protect children from inappropriate content.

We want the UK to be the safest place in the world to be online, and these new laws will help us achieve this.

The ban is set to be enforced by the British Board of Film Classification, but digital rights campaigners have speculated that this ban will severely affect the way the internet works and could open the door to scammers.

As you can imagine, this is pretty big news on certain sections of the internet and to say that people are making jokes would be a bit of an understatement.

Needless to say, some of these jokes are NSFW.

Predictably 'Sexit' soon started trending.

Not only are we going to have to stockpile food in preparation for Brexit, but we are also going to have to stockpile porn.

You can almost hear the roars of delight in the offices of VPN service providers.

While it appears that the government are adamant in protecting people from seeing porn, they aren't too concerned about protecting journalists email addresses, judging by how they released the statement anyway...

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