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Yes, but they want to show children content that is not appropriate, then claim ignorance.

To give them the benefit of the doubt you could say they only want to show children content on its own that is fully parent-agreeable.

Meta just wants to do it in the most habit-forming way, that is embedded in a system crafted to mold young behavior into more manipulable consumers.

>Meta already knows the age of all its users

Roger, now they want a government mandate to target everyone else on the internet.

If a company relies on self reported ages, they don't "know" it well enough to satisfy COPPA. Probably. I'm not a lawyer but I do keep up with the latest in privacy enforcement and I think this is the way things are headed.

For the record, I'm against age verification laws. But I think companies are pushing for them because of liabilities they face under other laws, not because they would actually like to have the data.

Legally, there's a difference between "knowing" and "accurate enough for loose cannon advertisers".