George Santos and life in deceptive times

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) is in federal custody after the Justice Department unsealed federal charges against the Republican for fraud, misuse of public funds, money laundering and making false statements to the House of Representatives.

Santos’s life calls to mind Sir Walter Scott’s quote “Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.” In other words, lies are like spider webs — they fan out beyond the initial lie into more serious and complex patterns of deception, especially in a digital world.

Consider the FBI’s probe into how and why a member of the U.S. military broke his fundamental oath to preserve secrecy and protect the nation. Jack Teixera allegedly distributed hundreds of classified documents on social media for months without detection, allegedly posting them as early as 48 hours after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The trail was uncovered by enterprising journalists whose keyboards worked faster than big, official bureaucracies in tracking the disclosures.

Once posted online, the scandal grew, and more people participated in the leaks.

According to recent reporting, others who saw the initial leak may have engaged in further distribution, citing it as “open source” material — another challenge to limiting deception in a world where the internet confers a mistaken sense of legitimacy.

Deception is as old as time, going back to the Garden of Eden. But the punishment doesn’t always fit the crime in a public that’s grown weary of lies.

Where does deception come from today, and what can be done about it?

Some deception comes from an unregulated internet spewing falsehoods and unchecked facts that grow, exponentially like weeds — though not always with malicious intent. Misinformation about vaccines might not have been intended to deceive, but the outcome was vaccine hesitance, and that had deadly consequences.

Students in a class might use ChatGPT to write essays. The software program sifts through the internet and prepare an amalgamation of existing online materials strung together — some of it true, some not. The motives might not be malicious, but the outcome will be.

Some deception is purposeful — what we call “disinformation” with the aim of conveying falsehoods.

A Russian troll campaign in 2016 created dissension in our electorate by trying to interfere in our elections. Covert social media operations enflamed partisan divides by masquerading as legitimate news operations.

A Chinese organization opened a secret police station in New York City posing as a humanitarian operation when the true motive was to collect intelligence on Chinese dissidents.

And now we see examples of China and Russia teaming up to spread false rumors, such as the existence of biological weapons in Ukraine.

What can be done to slow the wheels of deception by individuals and states?

First, we must look at new technologies with a skeptic’s eye and a moral code. Artificial intelligence is critically important, but even machines can lie. Behind every program is a programmer with a bias. We must identify the biases and confront them.

Second, we need rules both for social media platforms and for users who perpetuate inaccurate stories. We must raise the price for violating the public’s trust, whether that is a harsh sentence for Teixera or increased sanctions against Russia and China. Violating American security is a high crime.

We also need sensible corporate rules, community standards and parental controls.

And let’s make it clear what hate speech is and the punishment for using it online or in person. Let’s reintroduce civics into every school instead of arguing over critical race theory.

Behavior is taught. Bad behavior gets punished. We will see whether George Santos pays a price deception. Let’s untangle the web of deceit before it strangles us.

Tara Sonenshine teaches public diplomacy as the Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.