Also, criminals usually have poor operational security—far from perfect. The seriousness of the offense isn't related to the quality of their opsec.
Regulators and law enforcement are generally rational. They may be short-sighted, but they often have reasonable explanations for things you might dismiss as stupid.
That sucks, CSAM sucks, emotional regulation sucks, and as a society, we don't know how to manage allowing kids online. In fact we don't even know, what we'd like. From a political/policy standpoint, that's the challenge of the next 20 years.