I absolutely agree. I’m a parent and I’ll never install a content filter. Ever.

I prefer to operate on trust. My kids tell me what they want to look at, I agree to it, then I unlock the computer to they can access it. If they access anything else, they lose that privilege until I’m confident they’ve learned their lesson and we try again. Rinse and repeat.

Trust is earned, and I hope by the time they’re old enough to be interested in boobs, they’ll value that trust. That worked reasonably well for me.

With a content filter, you’re immediately telling the child you don’t trust them, so they’re going to circumvent it, or just use their friend’s computer. I’d much rather they look at porn on my computer than their friend’s, because I can find out about it if it’s on my computer, whereas I can’t if it’s at a friend’s house. And if they’re interested in porn, that probably means they’re interested in sex, which means we need to discuss it to build that trust before they go out and have unprotected sex. If they’re watching overly violent stuff or whatever, they’re probably talking about that kind of thing with friends and I may need to be careful about who I let them spend time with (or notify the other kids’ parents). And so on.

Content filters hide the problem, I’d much rather confront it head on.