I’d say some of the downsides on the modern internet become much starker when your kids come up against them. As adults growing up through the birth of the internet we are kinda inoculated to it.

I suspect the lack of privacy is because the target audience is “kids” not “teens”. When my kids first discovered group chat in iMessage with their cousins it was fun for literally 30 minutes before it was tears and abuse - which was a really instructive lesson for me.

At that (primary school) age parents would almost universally know the parents of your kid’s out-of-school playmates - if only because someone tends to have duty of care at any time and who is where with whom needs to be figured out.

The feature set seems sound and frankly welcome and overdue to me!