well, i haven't read the text of these new laws that are coming out, australia has them, and now UK, you may remember some law that made it so when signing up to forums back in the day you had to say you were over 13 years of age.

idk how well it could fly in USA law to make age required/KYC laws but you see there is a lot of movement in this direction to KYC all the things, and making it so you can't use a messaging app without doing it, i can see google and apple preemptively making this the rule for all of their local app stores.

what goes on in the background is why: companies like Thiel's Palantir will pay them for it. it has nothing to do with safety any more than why the nazis told the prisoners that their internment was for their own safety.