The Vergecast – "The Speech Police Came for Colbert"

February 19, 2026
Hosts: David Pierce, Nilay Patel
Notable Guest: Todd Hazelton

Overview – Main Theme and Purpose

This episode dives deep into the controversy where FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr’s actions around the equal time rule led to CBS pulling a political interview from broadcast, sending Stephen Colbert into open protest about censorship and legal chilling effects. The hosts analyze the intersection of tech, law, media, and regulatory overreach, bringing clarity and righteous indignation to the story. The episode then sweeps into gadget news—from Apple and Meta’s plans to privacy issues with smartglasses—before ending with a brisk lightning round of tech news and thoughtful riffs on the future of platforms and devices.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Brendan Carr, the FCC, and Chilling Speech on Colbert

Timestamps: 02:58–24:47

• FCC’s “Chilling Effect”:
  • Brendan Carr (FCC) floated rolling back the equal time rule exemption for talk shows, spooking CBS lawyers into pulling Stephen Colbert’s interview with political candidate James Talarico.
  • Nilay: “This is the chilling effect in action. ... You make it go away. ... Brendan has been talking about the equal time rule, which ... hasn't been enforced in years and years and years.” (04:06)
• Legal Uncertainty and Pressure:
  • Networks, fearing regulatory headaches, self-police beyond even what the law requires.
  • Nilay: “If you don't know how to follow the rule and at every turn, you could still be punished by a capricious idiot, you're definitely just not going to do anything that might trigger the rule. Your speech will be chilled.” (05:28)
• Colbert’s Response:
  • Colbert explained the situation to viewers, called out CBS, and posted the cut interview on YouTube, leading to viral attention (the Streisand effect)—thereby undermining Carr’s intention.
  • Colbert (clip): "He's just released a letter that says he's thinking about doing away with the exception for late night. He hasn't done away with it yet, but my network is unilaterally enforcing it as if he had." (07:52)
• The Streisand Effect:
  • Refusing to air the interview on TV actually drove more viewers to YouTube.
  • Nilay: “In the history of free speech controversies, saying you can't watch something is the best way to get people to watch it.” (08:47)
• Legal Background:
  • The equal time exemption for bona fide news interviews is enshrined in law, but network lawyers retreated regardless.
  • Nilay: “If you want to change this rule, Brendan, you have to ... go through the process and take public comment.” (11:12)

Notable Quotes

• Nilay (about CBS lawyers):
  “The lawyers saying they're providing guidance while saying no is the art of being a media lawyer.” (14:09)
• Nilay on government reach:
  “That's some Soviet stuff. The government minder is standing backstage to tell the talk show host what the government would like them to say.” (15:35)
• Nilay on media PR evasion:
  “If you are going to cave to the government ... you got to put your name on it. ... Sorry, Phil.” (17:25)
• Nilay on Carr’s self-perception:
  “In his head, he is winning. I think we as the American people are losing. ... Most Americans understand that you should not have government minders standing backstage at a talk show telling the host what they can and cannot say.” (19:00)

2. Big Tech, Platform Power, and Speech Control

Timestamps: 24:29–24:47

• Ongoing battle between media owners’ compliance vs. creative freedom. If media moguls don’t defend creators, they get left with “a network that distributes nothing to no one”.
• Comparison to Rupert Murdoch:
  • Fox News gets the attention, but the Wall Street Journal’s editorial independence is protected because that’s where real power is.

3. Meta, Smart Glasses, and the Perils of Facial Recognition

Timestamps: 27:11–39:25

• Meta’s Planned ‘Name Tag’ Feature:
  • Leaked internal memo shows Meta intends to launch facial recognition for Ray-Ban glasses, seeking to debut as an accessibility feature for the visually impaired, but fully aware of chilling civil liberties concerns.
  • Memo: “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.” (30:13)
• Hosts’ Take:
  • Nilay: Describes “The killer app...is walking around and knowing everyone’s name. ... But to build that, you need a global facial recognition database, which is bad.” (27:42; 32:26)
  • Meta acknowledges the harms and is moving forward anyway; transparency about risks shows cynicism, not naivety.
  • Ongoing tension: The benefit to users is significant, but the societal cost (pervasive surveillance, government exploitation) is immense.
  • Nilay: “The second Meta has a database of where and when it saw people ... that's what our government will do.” (33:01)
• General Tech Disregard for Consequences:
  • Tech CEOs now plainly recognize harms in advance and proceed, often citing money as justification.
  • Conversation draws parallels to Facebook’s and WhatsApp’s role in real-world harms.

4. Gadget Season: Apple Announcements, RAM Woes, and Supply Shortages

Timestamps: 39:25–45:53

• Apple’s March 4 Multi-City Event:
  • Likely a batch of incremental product updates via press release (e.g., spec-bumped iPads, Macs), not a huge event— possibly as a result of supply chain constraints and limited innovation.
  • RAM (memory) prices are spiking due to AI datacenter demand, which may hurt small and midrange gadget makers.
  • Nilay: “The RAM market is just fully out of control and Apple ... wants to do more local AI.” (41:31)
  • Smaller startups and hardware makers, without Apple’s supply leverage, may not survive.

5. Apple’s Next AI Devices: Gadgets Around the iPhone

Timestamps: 45:53–54:57

• Apple’s Future Devices:

  • Rumored to be working on three AI gadgets:
    1. Smart glasses (without a display)
    2. AirPods with a camera
    3. An AI-powered pendant/tag that can take input (microphone/speaker)
  • David: “Apple continues to see the phone as the thing ... all of these other devices are sort of like ... the phone is heliocentric and they all operate around the phone.” (47:55)
  • Nilay: “Apple can't not have a phone. Right. You can't turn off the Candy Crush Whales.” (48:18)

• Content Moderation and AI:

  • Meta and Google are better at information retrieval and moderation, giving them an edge over Apple in providing AR “overlay” information.
  • AI’s role in making sense of visual data is now mainstream, as shown by Google Lens usage.

• New Input Paradigms:

  • The next big change may be new ways to input information, not necessarily a new display like AR glasses.

6. Lightning Round: Quickfire Tech and Media Updates

Timestamps: 64:40–88:59

Highlights

• DJI Robovac Horror:
  • Major security failures allowed one user, via AI code assistant Claude Code, to access 7,000+ DJI robovacs, see video streams, and even map the reviewer’s house.
  • Nilay: “This isn't like high end hacker behavior. ... This is a person who works in AI and they know how to use cloud code.” (66:54)
• Samsung S26 Privacy Display:
  • Ads leaked showing a privacy screen for the Galaxy S26—prevents others from seeing your phone at an angle, which both David and Nilay admit would end their subway people-watching habit. (70:02)
• Epstein Files, 4chan, and PDFs:
  • Chris Poole (founder of 4chan): On the record denies any Epstein connection. Details on weird formatting in Epstein PDF files, and the critical role of the PDF Association (75:24)—with a running joke about eventually devoting an episode to PDFs.
• Warner Bros–Paramount–Netflix Bidding War:
  • Ellisons determined to buy despite chilling speech, but risking emptying creative institutions of talent.
• Tesla Robo-taxi Crash Rate:
  • Tesla taxis in Austin are four times as crash-prone as human drivers; highlights clear difference from safer Waymo system.
  • Nilay: “Taking FSD and being like, it's a taxi now doesn't do the job.” (83:12)
• WordPress AI Assistant:
  • WordPress (huge chunk of Internet infrastructure) now has a built-in AI tool for editing sites via plain language—potentially a big leap for accessibility, usability, and competition with SaaS tools. (86:13)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “In the history of free speech controversies, saying you can't watch something is the best way to get people to watch it.” — Nilay Patel (08:47)
• “CBS’s statement ... this is a surprisingly small piece of paper considering how many butts it's trying to cover in it.” — Stephen Colbert (clip), via David Pierce (13:00)
• "That's some, like, Soviet stuff. The government minder is standing backstage to tell the talk show host what the government would like them to say. That's bad." — Nilay Patel (15:35)
• "Meta ... has decided it's worth building anyway." — David Pierce (35:50)
• “The killer app for [AR glasses] is saying you can be at a conference and know everybody's name. ... And you shouldn't make it.” — Nilay Patel (34:01)
• "It is the way to be. Also get the insurance on your phone.” — David Pierce (62:42)
• “Four times as many accidents as humans. ... So this thing is just like one in four, just bumping into stuff. It's ridiculous.” — Nilay Patel (83:12)

Important Segment Timestamps

• Colbert/Brendan Carr saga discussion: 02:58–24:47
• Meta facial recognition controversy: 27:11–39:25
• Apple spring event & RAM crisis: 39:25–45:53
• Apple’s future AI gadgets: 45:53–54:57
• Samsung leaks & privacy display: 70:02–72:55
• Tesla Robo-taxi crash rate: 80:15–85:02
• DJI robovac security flaw: 65:03–68:43
• WordPress AI assistant: 86:13–88:47

Language and Tone

The episode is irreverent, critical, and deeply knowledgeable. Conversation is loaded with inside jokes (“Brendan Carr is a dummy” theme song), trenchant analysis of tech/media/law intersections, thoughtful warnings on surveillance, and pointed media criticism.

Summary

This Vergecast episode is a whirlwind tour through the Colbert/Carr regulatory scandal and its implications for free speech, moving into hot-button Big Tech controversies (Meta’s facial recognition plans), the new world of AI-driven gadget constraints, and a lightning round that is both fun and full of insight into the current state of tech, media, and privacy. The hosts’ passion, skepticism, and expertise make it an essential listen for anyone invested in the crosscurrents of policy, technology, and culture.