> No such mandates should take place at all
How do you propose doing age restrictions for social media?
These are broadly popular. (And the evidence supports them.) They are happening. So the question is how to do it best. The project for reversing the consensus isn’t worthless. But it’s a long-term project that will have to bear fruit after these restrictions go into effect, if ever.
only parents can decide for their own children, so you can do whatever you want for your own children
There's also broad popular support for raising taxes on millionaires, legal access to abortion, and cheaper healthcare, all of which are at least as important as the issue of kids using social media without restrictions. If the premise is that we should solve them with whatever solutions we can come up with unless everyone agrees on something better, I'll look forward to the upcoming laws that tax capital gains the same as income, enshrine a woman's right to choose, and to establish Medicare for all. When those all take effect, I'll accept your solution to mandate ID checks on every device I own, but until then, this line of argument is nonsensical.
>These are broadly popular
The idea is broadly popular but the second you start asking about implementation details (ie showing your ID to post on the web), the actual approval percentage tanks down to the single digits.
But you knew that which is why you construct this rhetorical motte-and-bailey about it being "broadly popular"