Yes, it is a pretense and the point of mentioning "the children" is to mobilize the child-worshipping demographic who believe, in all cases, that anything that raises any risk to children should be banned, and that this should not be discussed by decent people. The successful child-worshippers also instantly burst into hysterics and aggressive personal attacks when spoken to about the subject (hysterics and tears when they agree, the latter otherwise.) Their success lies in never lowering themselves to discuss anything with anybody. They're here to tell you.

They are an extreme minority of every population (mostly people who aren't interested in politics or civil liberties who enjoy and care about children.) But sensible people are also an extreme minority of the population; we normal people usually aren't so sensible, instead we listen to sensible people and follow their advice.

So the people who want everybody on the internet to identify themselves pit hysterics against measured voices in the media, in order to create a fake controversy that only has to last until the law gets passed. Afterwards, the politicians and commentariat who were directly paid or found personal brand benefit in associating with the hysterics start leaving quotes like: "This isn't what we thought we passed" and "It might be useful to have a review to see if this has gone too far." Then we find out that half the politicians connected with the legislation have connections to an age verification firm which is also an data broker, and has half a billion in contracts with the MoD.