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I think that websites generally do this based on whether the content is primarily intended for children (e.g. youtube doesn't collect this type of data when users are viewing videos marked as being for children).

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And this ends up breaking the site for adults as well.

I have a YouTube playlist of videos I'd like to show my kids. It turns out that YouTube will not allow videos marked as "intended for children" to be added to a playlist, even by an account that belongs to a adult. So the only videos I can put in that playlist for my kids are ones YouTube thinks are NOT for kids.

That just sounds like a bug.

It's not a bug, it's a direct and intentional consequence of the FTC's efforts to strengthen COPPA which this article complains that Google didn't just go along with, and required by the settlement mentioned in the article. COPPA effectively bans companies from collecting data on under-13s (there's a parental consent provision which is basically infeasable to comply with), which includes stuff like letting them add videos to playlists. Google didn't allow under-13s to have accounts, but parents let kids watch videos on their accounts and the FTC's position is that this was a violation of COPPA when the videos weren't aimed at kids. So now Google cannot, by law, allow people to comment on videos that seem like they're aimed at kids, add them to playlists, or do other things that collect data from the person viewing them.

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