A filter will not be of much help if someone wants to access certain sort of material. I agree that there are cheap smartphones availables and it will only increase. So what? After all there are various other forbidden items for sale, and many of them are very cheap and easily available, in every neighbourhood. If someone decides they want to purchase and use, it’s easy to. But most people don’t.
If you believe it’d be different with the internet, please explain why. If you believe people would rebel to being filtered and monitored, or at least resent it, please explain the reason it is not happening right now. Our local system administrator does, as well as our ISP, our Tier 1, and of course the government. I trust them zero, and on top of that I loathe them, and yet, I let them do so (I don’t have my own infrastructure and very few people do).
That said, please don’t insult our intelligence about “questionable material” being equated with something a MD or an OB-GYN would study (one can only wish it were so), nor about professionals “needing” access to unfiltered internet (which, actually, most of us want to filter in order to avoid malware, spyware, and unwanted content which, as it was already mentioned, can land innocent people in jail due to law violations by their employees).
I can think of only one industry that needs completely unfiltered access (not really to the user, but indeed to their machine), and that is data mining. I sure hope those who are in that business have asked a shaila whether it’s a permissible manner to make a living.
Maybe there are other areas with similar requirements, and please feel free to list them. I can’t think of others.
I never heard of any college that mandates use of their computers and networks for connecting to the internet (suddendly a personal device and connection is too expensive for people who spend tens and hundreds of K$ on college?) and by the way, the standard is that they monitor, filter, and sometimes do more than that.
Finally I don’t have any problem about you using or not using any filters, in fact, if you have unfiltered internet, I assume you have both good valid reasons and a heter, as well as sharp skills and/or a full-time network manager. Yet, this is quite different from treating others like fools because they use a filter.