I really think you ought to have a look at how a child that has grown up with the internet treats it. My son has. He's had few restrictions, but conversations - both at home and at school - about what is ok.
He's had his computer in the same room as me for years and is only now (at 12) given some privacy online.
I know - from hearing and reading his conversations - that he and his friends are well versed in being cautious. If anything, they're far more cautious than I was when much older. E.g. the moment a stranger is on a voice channel when in some online game they'll cautious each other to avoid even first names, or rough location, and I've hard them descend on some poor unsuspecting person who dared ask one (innocent) question too many.
With respect to social media, he doesn't use it. Partly because he's not yet interested much. He's aware of them, mostly via youtube videos of people pointing out all kinds of pitfalls people have gone in.
He delights in showing me youtube videos of people showcasing people dumb enough to give out too much information, or posting things they shouldn't. Generally he's far more shocked about what stupid stuff people do online than I am.
He installed an ad blocker of his own accord, because he was tired of being bombarded by ads he was suspicious of. He's absolutely paranoid about viruses. He'll be far quicker to assume something is a scam than I am.
I know this is just one anecdote, but I think if you spend time talking to kids growing up with the internet now, they understand the net much better than you might think. Not all of them, certainly, but a larger proportion seem to understand it now than when I started using the net, where people still readily gave out their phone numbers to total strangers in chat rooms for example.
As for being influenced, I'm not at all convinced that kids would do worst, or even that badly on being influenced by social media.
Listening to my son and his friends, if anything net access have made them far more sceptical about not just the net but everything than my friends were growing up - my son and his friends have been bombarded with conflicting messages for years, and so they are very vary about which sources they believe, while most of my friends growing up would inherently trust whatever news source their parents preferrred and had no experience in understanding media bias or questioning the veracity of a source.
> Also making the internet save for children requires for adults to give up too much freedom. A free internet and a child friendly internet do not mix. The need for age verification is already very problematic, allowing for easier identification and tracking.
The faulty premise is assuming we need to make the internet "safe". The real world is not safe. Children mostly do just fine because we don't let them into it without supervision and without teaching them to take precautions. It's not perfect, but it works well enough, and it'll work better once more parents have grown up with the internet from an early age themselves.