> It's only serious when someone calls them out and decides to pursue it.

How many technology executives who have clearly lied before Congress have been charged with a crime?

https://www.rollcall.com/2018/11/30/cohen-among-select-few-c...

> Pursuing criminal charges against those who are untruthful to Congress would be a huge shift from tradition. “Almost no one is prosecuted for lying to Congress,” attorney PJ Meitl wrote in a 2006 law review article on the topic, “in fact, only six people have been convicted of perjury or related charges in relation to Congress in the last sixty years.”

You could do any kind of crime and potentially get away with it. That’s not a good measure of how serious it is.

But the statistic of how often doing X gets somebody in jail is very important measure. (there is a fine for littering, but people constantly drop cigarette butts or gum on the ground, because there is no enforcement. And since there is no enforcement it is perceived as not a serious thing / acceptable behaviour)

Edit: to add to that, there are two dimensions: potential punishment and probability of enforcment. Both are equaly important.

> Technology executes lie in front of Congress all the time.

Do you mean the technology is programmed to present incorrect data or that tech company executives lie?

It’s only illegal if you get caught.