To listen to the horrifying anecdotes of the victims, whether of “harassment,” “bullying,” even revenge porn, one can appreciate that there are bad things happening that are causing people pain. And yet, there are harsh and uncaring people who keep doing their utmost to prevent solutions from happening. Why would anyone, me for instance, be so mean and hateful?

Fortunately, Europe is way ahead of us in its protection of people’s privacy from other people, from hurtful speech and expression. It provides insight into what will happen if we adopt their ways. It’s not that the anecdotes aren’t true, but that they only tell one side of a story. It’s the other side that advocates deny and sycophants ignore that will come to bite us in the butt.

You might think it’s cute to snap a photo of your toddler running around in a playground or having a temper tantrum, and then posting it on social media. But did you ever think it might be a mistake, or even illegal?

The French government earlier this year warned parents to stop posting images of their children on social media networks.

Under France’s rigorous privacy laws, parents could face penalties of up to a year in prison and a fine of €45,000 ($46,456) if convicted of publicising intimate details of their children without their consent.

Crazy, right? Except you didn’t obtain your baby’s consent, did you? And for crying out loud, make absolutely sure it’s not one of those porn pics, where an infant is topless and the areola is in full view. Or the dreaded buttocks.

Wait, what? Well, sure, that’s what the language of the laws already enacted in thirty-something states and proposed in Congress says, to prevent terrible wrongs. Surely, we want to criminalize those wrongs lest women be without easy recourse. But no government would be so shameless, so unthinking, as to penalize parents for something so harmless as posting a pic of their beautiful child on the internets to gather oodles of likes on Facebook.

Except that’s exactly what is happening in France.  Are the French totally nuts and it could never happen here? So what if the laws as written fully cover such absurdities, totally criminalize a parent’s proud and loving pic of their little darling? Only a monster would make a stink about it. Those darn Frenchies must all be monsters, right?

This new norm means that many children will have a powerful digital identity created by someone else. This process can be likened to the manufacturing of celebrity identities, where parents can potentially shape the public persona of their child in any way they want: Child genius, disobedient, fashionista, fussy eater and so on.

See the train of thought that goes into rationalizing why the proud parent is really an evil abuser? It’s not about a proud parent showing off their beloved toddler, but about an evil parent creating a “powerful digital identify,” just like celebrities.

We often tell our kids that once something is on the internet it is there forever, and this is a core concern for kids. Research shows that parents often haven’t considered the potential reach and the longevity of the digital information that they’re sharing about their child.

Your child won’t have much control over where that home video of her having an embarrassing first singing lesson ends up or who sees it.

How easily it slides from a sweet parent thing to an evil embarrassment that will haunt a child in perpetuity, potentially destroying their lives when they come of age and realize how malignant mommy was.

Given the relative youth of social media, it’s hard to say exactly how growing up online could affect children’s privacy, safety and security. But social media has also been around long enough now (Facebook is now 14 years old) that it’s important to seriously consider the issue.

Indeed, it is important to seriously consider the issue. On the one hand, many parents have recognized that images and information that seems harmless, if not adorable, at the time could end up being abused. Consider that your child’s angelic face is used to replace the face of a child being raped, creating the appearance that yours is being raped, then shared among kiddie porn watchers. There is a lot of truly bad things that can happen on the internet with your kids, and every parent should be aware of this, and take precautions to safeguard their children.

But then, if they don’t, even if no harm comes of it, they are still the criminal. Just as the internet is in its infancy for the purpose of appreciating its potential for harm, it’s in its infancy for the purpose of creating crimes to combat harms.  The rush to blindly stop one gives rise to the other, the crimes that no one would believe could be crimes, that no one would believe any reasonable person would prosecute.

The French aren’t nuts. The rationale for why they have embraced the concerns of privacy is remarkably similar to the arguments for criminalization here, all well-intended and totally rational-sounding if one doesn’t labor too hard to think beyond the hype.  But where it ends up in France is where it will end up here as well. Mommy will be punished for potentially ruining junior’s life by posting a cute pic on the internet.

Doesn’t privacy matter? What about the terrible harms cause by revealing private information, naked pictures, embarrassing moments, that will remain in perpetuity on the internet to destroy your digital persona?  These are all legitimate concerns. But dealing with them without putting mommy in jail is the question. Advocates of criminalization want to pretend none of this will ever happen, it’s all ridiculous fear-mongering.

The  French tell us otherwise. The Germans tell us otherwise. Not only isn’t this ridiculous, but it’s hardly a stretch at all.