A ban on social media for children is a different way of saying ID Verification for the entire population.

They are implicitly the same thing.

You can't exclude children without first verifying _everyone_ and from there excluding people who match age < approved. This is basic logic.

If you were a cynical person you could imagine this is actually politicians wanting to bring in an ID law and using "think of the children" as the social justification for it.

If you're a conspiracy theorist you'd wonder why Apple and Google have now added the ability to upload and link your passport and other real id into their respective app wallets. How long before your phones browser is digitally signing all your social media posts with your ID...