CBS News -- an organization that is, or should be, in institutional crisis -- had an extraordinary day on Sunday, overtly attacking free speech and promoting government censorship on both of its two signature programs. Much was rightly made of Face the Nation anchor Margaret Brennan's stunning argument that free speech caused the Holocaust. "Free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide," she intoned, sparking an admirably restrained rebuke from Secretary of State Marco Rubio. "I have to disagree with you," he said, "free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime...there was no free speech in Nazi Germany." That such a thing needed to be said by an American official, let alone to correct a leading 'news' media personality arguing the opposite point, is astounding.
If Brennan's intended meaning was that pre-Nazi Germany was too permissive in its openness, thus abetting the Nazis' rise to power, that's also ahistorical nonsense. Anti-speech laws were, in fact, enforced against the Nazis, which perversely helped fuel their rise; they then started obliterating a wide array of rights -- very much including free expression and association -- after taking control of the country. As Charles Cooke notes, there's no charitable spin for Brennan's jaw-dropping assertion to Rubio:
There’s no good way of parsing her words. If she believes it was true of the Nazi regime, she’s historically illiterate. If she meant it was true prior to that regime’s coming to power, then she’s ineluctably making a case for incumbent governments censoring their critics.
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 16, 2025
'The German government prior to Hitler should have censored dissenting voices harder' presents a limitless justification for stifling, suppressing, or outlawing political speech. It's the easiest thing in the world to understand how government censorship -- especially government censorship supposedly justified by the specter of future Nazi types gaining a foothold -- would inevitably be used and and abused by incumbent politicians and governments the world over. Talk about a screamingly obvious, bona fide threat to democracy. Critics raked Brennan over the coals for this exchange, a swirling pile-on that was richly deserved. But at least her comments appeared to be an extemporaneous outburst of ignorance, whipped up on the fly while flailing against an official from an administration she opposes. That's not a defense, mind you; it's a mitigating factor.
The same cannot be said, however, of the lengthy segment that aired on the same network's tent pole 'news' program later that evening. This was not some wildly ill-considered 13-second soundbyte, blurted out in a live interview. It was a 13-minute pre-produced package, reported and edited by numerous journalists, up and down the editorial chain. We are told that 60 Minutes is the 'gold standard' for American broadcast journalism. Bear that in mind as you sit back and watch -- and please do watch it all -- this video, which amounts to an extended advertisement for government censorship. It is nothing short of breathtaking:
Let's start with the striking lack of a single on-camera advocate for free speech, anywhere in the story. Zero. None. I kept waiting for the latest new character introduced to finally be an anti-censorship voice, pushing back on the festival of self-congratulation and suppression that had been exclusively featured up to that point. That voice never arrived. Every interview subject was a cog in Germany's anti-speech machine, from the three prosecutors who send cops to conduct pre-dawn raids at people's houses over online memes and insults (CBS cameras rolled during a few of these exercises), to anti-speech activists cheering them on, to a politician who is very pleased with herself for successfully suing Meta for not clamping down on 'misinformation' hard enough. Each of these people fervently believe they're the protagonists, with CBS' Sharyn Alfonsi seemingly agreeing at every step, barely even half-heartededly pushing back at any point. She appears to be impressed with their efforts to enforce "a touch of German order" upon the Internet, even if she's also a tad concerned that they may not be doing quite enough punishing and suppressing.
The prosecutors chortle as they recount how many of their countrymen initially can't believe they've broken the law by saying something deemed to be insulting, hateful, or incorrect online. When they try to use free speech in self defense, one of the prosecutors smugly explains, they're told "no, you have free speech as well, but it also has its limits." What sorts of limits? Is insulting someone a crime? "Yes," they all chirp in unison. What if someone reposts content that is factually false? "In the case of reposting, it is a crime as well," one of the prosecutors says. Whether you 'invented' or simply shared the offending content "that's the same for us." They are proud of this. They think this is good. Punishments include confiscation of electronic devices (the prosecutors and the journalists all get a big kick out of how "offenders" dislike that outcome), fines in the thousands of Euros, and even jail time. The report raises an example of a lefty politician being called a silly word (describing of the male anatomy) on social media, resulting in a complaint and a police raid. The prosecutors calmly explain that such taunts are not a productive part of the dialogue, and therefore are crimes. Don't like it? Careful what you say about it, because that may also be a crime.
Up next is a pro-censorship activist with 'Hate Aid,' which calls itself a "human rights organization," based in Berlin, that supports "victims of online violence." Think about these terms, and how they're being applied and abused, with no challenge whatsoever from CBS. This woman describes a hellscape in which, absent speech "boundaries," people might enjoy "endless freedom" -- her exact words -- to "say anything that they want." Yes, "endless freedom" is the scare phrase. She then makes a point that is inarguably, at least in large part, an incredible misdiagnosis: "Already half the internet users in Germany are afraid to express their political opinion, and they rarely participate in online debates anymore," she gravely warns, adding, "half of the internet users," for extra emphasis. The glaring follow-ups go unasked, in case you were wondering. Do you think a lot of people might avoid online discourse because if someone else doesn't like what they have to say, they might get a cop's boot through their door the next morning, as you applaud from the sidelines? Might government censors and their insufferable henchmen be bullying people away from speech, by criminalizing it? This does not appear to have crossed any of these people's minds, the American reporter included.
Instead, CBS instantly pivots to celebrating a censorious leftist politician "victim" of online misinformation. This woman, presented as a conquering hero, is the fifth consecutive anti-speech, pro-censorship face in the package, not counting the correspondent. "You've spent your life in politics," Alfonsi gushes, as the person who's devoted her career to wielding power over others complains about nasty and unfair things said about her on the internet. A false quote was attributed to her on Facebook. She insisted that the company delete every post featuring the false quote, worldwide. Facebook representatives were "astonished" and said this wasn't feasible. She sued them, and won, as European courts love censorship, restrictions and regulatory strangulation. Letting people say mean or wrong things to politicians would "harm democracy" our ostensible hero says of the court's ruling. Of course she does. With appeals underway, she says she's noticed a reduction in the unpleasant posts and comments sent her way. She's especially proud of one comment she saw: "There was one tweet which says, 'don't say that to her, she will take you to court.'" "You might sue them," the CBS journalist beams. "I might sue them," the politician affirms, her eyes twinkling at the prospect.
The whole sickening display concludes with Alfonsi circling back to the four anti-free speech zealots we've already met to describe how important it is for their censorship tentacles to reach even further than they already have. Alfonsi closes by asking the prosecutors if it feels worth it to stifle some speech when they frustratingly can't stifle all the bad speech, everywhere. After all, she notes with dismay, "there's a lot of hate out there." Yes, they respond, because some censorship is so much better than none at all. And inaction isn't an option. "We are prosecutors. If we see a crime, we want to investigate it." Just to be clear, if I called the source of that last quote a "pimmel" in Germany, he could have me arrested. The American presiding over this conversation seems downright envious of their approach. I'm almost glad they didn't shoehorn in a ten-second soundbyte from some free speech advocate, to give a false pretense of balance. If you're going to choreograph pro-censorship propaganda, really go for it.
Finally, if I didn't know better, I'd wonder if CBS News was secretly colluding with Vice President Vance to thoroughly fortify and vindicate a core thesis of the speech he delivered in Munich last week, which left his hosts reeling. His big three points were that the essential 'shared' Western value of free speech is under attack and in retreat across much of Europe, that uncontrolled mass migration (especially from regions where Western values are rejected) can be disruptive and dangerous, and that leaders in democracies should listen to and engage with their electorates, rather than shaming and condescending to them. These comments ignited much of European officialdom with sputtering rage, which is a dramatic and instructive self-indictment. I'll leave you with that address, in case you missed it. Perhaps watch it back-to-back with the CBS video above. Vance tells a truth, and CBS News inadvertently demonstrates it: