[bilbo0s]

And if your friends are the politicians in charge, then maybe that would be a good argument that I should be less skeptical about the "think of the children" claim.

But your friends are likely not the politicians in charge, and even if they were, I wouldn't take the word of an anonymous internet poster that said friends were wholly honest and forthright in this regard. I would remain skeptical of their intentions. The recipe for good democracy includes a healthy amount of skepticism. Skepticism is what motivates investigations and inquiries. Inquiries of the type the FTC studiously avoided by not triggering the 10 entity flag.