iCloud Drive changing Date Modified when syncing

I see that people have complained about this over the years, but I don't see that it's been addressed recently. I turned on the "Desktop and Documents" Folder syncing feature on my MacBook Air (Sonoma 14.5) and when uploading my files iCloud changed the "Date Modified" to today. This is inaccurate and constitutes the loss of useful information. How is that a thing? I certainly never had this issue with Dropbox. Is there a way to undo it, or at least keep it from continuing to happen going forward? Thanks.