The problem is social media, and the culture around it, and how it's manipulated from individuals and companies with no ethics, to foreign states.

We're literally allowing people with bad intentions have a direct contact with children. It's insane.

Not to mention that I learned that nowadays lying for some benefit on social media is completely normalized.

Lying used to be off-putting in western society, and would be a clear red line.

s/children/people/

I keep seeing this crop up in the id verification discussions. The same psychological processes that social media companies exploit in children exist in adults and have the same result. The problem isn't manipulating children, it's that they're manipulating everyone.