( ticking ) >> lies, deep-state hoaxes and slander on social media are wrecking the lives of innocent people. and yet, a federal law known as section 230 helps it to happen. one example? the myth that this iraq war veteran is the person responsible for the coronavirus. what has this meant to you? >> once my address was posted, that was it for me. because they put me in danger. my family. >> there was like 60 or 70 death threats over the span of, you know, four or five weeks. ( ticking ) >> this case is unprecedented in the history of the american legal system.

>> curtis flowers, a black man from mississippi, was tried six times for the same crime, by the same prosecutor. mr. flowers might still be on death row if it wasn't for an investigation led by these two women... >> it's been more than three years since i got an email from a woman telling me about a man named curtis flowers. >> ...and their relentless reporting. >> to ring in 2021 with the fanfare it deserves, we bring you the story of pianist igor levit, a 33-year-old classical colossus. ♪ ♪ levitt told us he misses his audiences dreadfully. so tonight, we thought we'd introduce him to ours. ♪ ♪ ( ticking ) >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker.

>> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm sharyn alfonsi. >> i'm jon wertheim. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories, tonight, on "60 minutes." smooth driving pays off you never been in better hands allstate click or call for a quote today where something takes us to a place where we need to ask for help; and that's what food banks are here for. i asked dale if walmart would partner with us and he said, "absolutely, let's figure out how to get this done." when you start working in an area and you're out in the stores, and in the community, you see the need. it was just the right thing to do. ♪ ♪

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if you have hepatitis b, do not stop taking biktarvy without talking to your doctor. common side effects were diarrhea, nausea, and headache. if you're living with hiv, keep loving who you are. and ask your doctor if biktarvy is right for you. >> pelley: a priority of the new president and congress will be reining in the giants of social media. on this, democrats and republicans agree. their target is a federal law known as "section 230."

in a single sentence, it set off the "big bang," helping to create the universe of google, facebook, twitter and the rest. some critics of the law say that it leaves social media free to ignore lies, hoaxes and slander that can wreck the lives of innocent people. one of those critics is lenny pozner. after a tragedy in his own life, pozner has become a champion for victims of online lies-- people including maatje and matt benassi, who overnight became the target of death threats like these. >> maatje benassi: "we're going to put a bullet in her skull." "let's load up the trucks." "let's go get them." "let's hang them." they posted our address, our full address, where we live. >> pelley: the hate focused on maatje and matt benassi was unleashed by a hoax that claims she brought covid-19 into the world.

>> matt benassi: it's changed and migrated over the 70-plus videos that they've had about us, but-- >> pelley: wait, 70? >> matt benassi: yeah. if you actually go through all of the videos, there is a total 70 videos, across multiple youtube channels. >> pelley: the videos claim maatje benassi carried the virus to china on a bicycle. she was invited there as a member of a u.s. military cycling team. maatje is a dutch immigrant-- american citizen and solider-- who served in iraq. in 2019, during an international military olympics, she crashed in wuhan, where covid-19 was discovered two months later. her collision with the internet began after an innocent article about the race. >> maatje benassi: and somebody came across it, and it had "wuhan" in it, and they took a run with it. "oh, we got a person." >> pelley: your name, the name "wuhan," and the rest only takes

a lot of imagination. >> maatje benassi: correct. >> pelley: what were they saying about you? >> maatje benassi: first they said i brought it to china. and when i crashed, i spread it. and that i spread it in the hospital-- which, i never was in a hospital. all these lies about vials in my bicycle, hidden. and, i have no idea. >> george webb: it's going to be this person by the name of maatja benassi, and we're-- >> pelley: the absurdity was spelled out, literally, by a hoax-peddler named george webb. he has a following among the" deep state" phony conspiracy crowd. what has this meant to you? >> maatje benassi: i was looking over my shoulder a lot. i was scared for my life >> pelley: you were taking all that seriously? >> maatje benassi: yes. once my address was posted, that was it for me. that did it. because they put me in danger. my family. >> matt benassi: there was like 60 or 70 death threats over the span of, you know, four or five weeks. >> pelley: they called the police and the f.b.i., which got

them nowhere. >> matt benassi: and the reason why the f.b.i. and the police don't want to talk to you is because even though we're receiving death threats, they didn't say, "we're coming to the benassis to kill them tonight." >> pelley: they need a crime to have been committed. >> matt benassi: that's correct. >> pelley: and you're trying to prevent a crime from being committed. >> matt benassi: absolutely. >> pelley: right about now, you might be thinking they should sue-- but that's the problem. they can't file hundreds of lawsuits against internet trolls hiding behind aliases. and they can't sue the internet platforms because of that law known as section 230 of the communications decency act of 1996. written before facebook or google were invented, section 230 says, in just 26 words, that internet platforms are not liable for what their users post. >> jeff kosseff: that means that if i were to post something about you on facebook that was

awful and defamatory, and you actually had a viable defamation lawsuit, you could sue me, but you can't sue facebook. >> pelley: jeff kosseff teaches law and wrote a book called "the 26 words that created the internet." but, help me understand, the same is not true for other forms of media? if somebody says something defamatory on "60 minutes" or on fox or cnn or in the "new york times," those organizations can be sued. so, why not google, youtube, facebook? >> kosseff: so, the difference between a social media site and, let's say, the letters to the editor page of the "new york times," is the vast amount of content that they deliver. so, i mean, you might have five or ten letters to the editor on a page. you could have-- i think it's 6,000 tweets per second. and so, section 230 really recognizes how exceptional the internet is and says, "we want

to encourage this marketplace of ideas." 25 years later, that marketplace has a lot of really great stuff, but it also has a lot of really terrible products in that marketplace. and that's really what's driving this debate right now. >> pelley: maatje and matt benassi quickly discovered the law was not on their side, so they turned to lenny pozner, who had suffered in the same way. >> lenny pozner: i was being attacked. the memory of my son-- my son's very short life, was being attacked. and i just wasn't going to stand for that. >> pelley: the very short life of pozner's son, noah, ended at connecticut's sandy hook elementary school in 2012, with 25 others. the gunshots of a madman have ricocheted online ever since. >> pozner: conversations denying the tragedy, accusing the government of staging it. >> pelley: what was the most

hurtful thing they said about you? >> pozner: that noah did not die. that i'm not noah's father. it all revolves around the notion that these are staged shootings, that they're scripted events, that i'm an actor, that i'm paid to fake the death of a child. >> pelley: before the covid pandemic, we hired theatrical makeup artists to disguise pozner for his safety. he's pursued by death threats. one woman left a voice mail saying, "death is coming for you real soon." she landed in prison, sooner. how many times have you had to move your family? >> pozner: around seven times. >> pelley: he's targeted because he's invented ways to fight back. he copyrighted photos of his son, to control how they're are used. he published a letter to facebook's c.e.o. that read," you have deemed our lives are less important than providing a safe haven for hate."

this was meant by you and your ex-wife to be public shaming of facebook? >> pozner: that has been really the only effective way to get change for online platforms. >> pelley: after the letter, a facebook manager called pozner. >> pozner: it began a relationship with facebook that helped them learn about the material that is being posted on their platform, and how it is abusive, defamatory. >> pelley: have you seen a difference-- a practical difference-- in facebook? >> pozner: yes, it's almost all gone. >> pelley: pozner expanded his work into a non-profit, called the honr network, that applies what he has learned to help others. >> andy parker: that's when i reached out to lenny pozner. he had volunteers that were fighting harassment, and i said, "lenny, i want this video to come down."

and he said, "i will help you do that." >> pelley: by himself, andy parker couldn't get video of his daughter's murder off of google's youtube. >> parker: i really expected them to do the right thing. their motto was, "don't be evil." and, for a while, they did a pretty good job of it. but now, they are the personification of evil. >> pelley: in 2015, reporter alison parker and cameraman adam ward were shot, on camera, by a fired co-worker. the scene has been posted hundreds of times. this one got more than 600,000 views. and to the right, the automatic ad means the person who posted this made money-- and so did youtube. >> parker: we shouldn't have to be the ones policing their platform. their terms of service say, "we don't allow this. we don't allow violent content. we don't allow harassment."

my biggest beef with google, and youtube, and facebook, for that matter, is, that video is still out there. it's still out there today. in essence, they profit from my daughter's murder. and i can't abide by that. >> pelley: do you worry about threats? >> parker: no, i really don't. >> pelley: why do you feel so brave? >> parker: because alison would expect nothing less. >> pelley: you're still her dad. >> parker: yeah, i'm her dad. always will be, and i will fight like hell for her. >> pelley: lenny pozner flagged alison parker videos for youtube to remove. youtube wrote us, "there is no place on youtube for content that exploits this horrendous act, and we've spent the last several years investing in tools and policies to quickly

remove it." youtube told us it now prioritizes all requests from pozner's honr network. why do you think the online platforms have not been effective in enforcing their own terms of service? >> pozner: i don't think they were prepared for their online platforms to be used this way. i think they were more focused on growth and expansion, and likely had more of an idealized notion of the internet and the way it would be used for the greater good. >> pelley: an idealized notion of human nature? >> pozner: yeah, well, yes. >> pelley: pozner also has been successful pulling down much of that covid-19 lie that shadows maatje and matt benassi. he got hoax peddler george webb kicked off youtube.

recently, some platforms took first steps toward editing their users. facebook and twitter flagged dubious content during the election. now they're doing the same for myths about covid-19. based on what you've had to learn about all of these things, what do you think the solution could be? >> matt benassi: this is really, really hard, right? because section 230. when that was written, it was probably done with the intent that social media companies would police themselves in some manner. and social media companies haven't done that very well. they need to police themselves quicker, or the government needs to step in and figure out some mechanism to make them liable. because making them liable would make them police themselves. >> pelley: but making social media liable would also mean facebook, twitter, even wikipedia and yelp, couldn't exist as we know them. president-elect biden wants to revoke section 230.

the federal government is already suing to break up facebook and google. no one can say what social media 2.0 will look like, or whether the innocent will ever be protected from a world wide web of lies. ( ticking ) >> what happens when harassment goes offline and into the real world? >> terrorizing someone is not free speech. >> at 60minutesovertime.com

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>> alfonsi: "60 minutes" has covered a lot of stories about flaws in our criminal justice system over the years, but we'd never heard anything like the case against curtis flowers. flowers, a black man from mississippi, was tried six times for the same crime, by the same prosecutor. he might still be on death row if not for the work of a team of reporters from an investigative podcast. tonight, you will hear from curtis flowers, the reporters who helped free him, and the prosecutor who relentlessly pursued him for more than two decades. it began in winona, mississippi, on a july morning in 1996. shortly after tardy furniture opened for the day, the store's owner, book-keeper, delivery man and a 16-year-old were shot in the head, execution style. no one saw it happen. when you heard about the crime and the way they were murdered, what was your reaction? >> curtis flowers: well, my heart dropped. the, the first thing, you know, i-- i felt sorry for them.

then i thought, well, i could've been there. >> alfonsi: curtis flowers had worked at tardy that summer for three days, delivering and fixing furniture, but he was let go after he stopped showing up. almost immediately after the murders, some victims' families suspected flowers. the police questioned him, but made no arrest. months passed. flowers moved to texas to live with his sister. and there's a knock at the door. >> flowers: and i answered it. and the next thing you know i was all up against the wall, being handcuffed. and he explained to me that, "we just have a warrant for your arrest back in mississippi." i said, "for what?" and he said, "four counts of capital murder." man, i said, "me? are you sure you got the right guy?" ♪ ♪ >> alfonsi: flowers had no criminal record, and was more likely to be on stage with a gospel group than in handcuffs. there was no murder weapon, no d.n.a. or fingerprints linking him to the crime. but it took an all-white jury

just an hour to deliberate and convict him. at age 27, curtis flowers was sentenced to death, and put in the mississippi state penitentiary known as parchman prison. were you scared? >> flowers: oh, yes. >> alfonsi: what's parchman like? >> flowers: the worstest thing you ever dreamed about. yeah, like a nightmare, because, you know, you hear all kinds of noise at night, you know. there are inmates who have just snapped. some who have lost it. they act up all night. >> alfonsi: and you were sitting on death row. i imagine other death row inmates were being executed. >> flowers: yes. yes. and that-- that was nerve- wracking itself. >> alfonsi: his conviction was appealed and overturned, but there would be five more trials for curtis flowers, for the same crime, by the same prosecutor. how can a person be tried for the same crime six times? >> rob mcduff: this case is unprecedented in the history of the american legal system.

>> alfonsi: attorney rob mcduff of the mississippi center for justice joined curtis flowers' legal team in 2019. in the first three trials, flowers was found guilty, but each conviction was overturned for prosecutorial misconduct. and when we talk about prosecutorial misconduct, were these simple missteps? or was it something bigger going on here? >> mcduff: no, tese convictions were reversed because of the prosecutor's misrepresentation of the evidence to the jury, and because of his discrimination in the-- in selection of the jury. >> alfonsi: but the same prosecutor goes after curtis flowers again, time after time. there's nothing in our system that stops that from happening? >> mcduff: unfortunately, there is not. this prosecutor was like captain ahab hunting the whale. >> alfonsi: the prosecutor was district attorney doug evans, who, even after hung juries in trials four and five, kept going. in 2010, evans finally got a

conviction to stick in trial six. flowers returned to death row. then an email changed his fortunes. ♪ ♪ >> madeleine baran: it's been more than three years since i got an email from a woman telling me about a man named curtis flowers. >> alfonsi: madeleine baran is the lead reporter for american public media's podcast "in the dark." samara freemark is the podcast's managing producer. >> baran: right away, it was like, "is this possible that someone would be tried six times?" >> alfonsi: to investigate how that happened, the "in the dark" team descended on winona, a town of 5,000. most of downtown, like tardy furniture, had faded away. the podcast reporters planned to stay a few months. they stayed a year, knocking on doors and interviewing hundreds of people. was there anything that anybody said early on that made you think, "oh, well, maybe he was the guy who did this?" >> baran: yeah. i mean, of course we have to assume that somebody has been convicted four times, there's a

chance he's guilty, of course. but the more we looked into the evidence, there wasn't a single piece of evidence that actually held up. >> alfonsi: the first piece of evidence to crumble was the winding route doug evans told jurors that curtis flowers walked that july morning. >> baran: that, you know, curtis woke up that morning, he was angry, he no longer worked at the furniture store. he wanted to kill the people there, but he didn't have a gun. so he walked across town, stole a gun from a car, walked home, still angry. left his house, walked with the gun to the furniture store, shot four people in the head, walked home. >> alfonsi: it seemed far- fetched flowers would brazenly walk so far in broad daylight. when the podcast reporters started talking to route witnesses who claimed they saw flowers, a pattern emerged. >> baran: it was clear they did not, for example, pick up the phone and call the police and say, "i saw something suspicious." that they were sought out, like, months later, in a lot of cases. and it turned out that they felt like they needed to tell law

enforcement that this happened. or, as one guy said, "they already told me that they knew i saw curtis." >> samara freemark: they had the whole story laid out for me, and all i had to do was say yes. >> alfonsi: who was the most important route witness? >> baran: clemmie fleming. clemmie testified that curtis flowers was running away from the furniture store shortly after the murders. this is, of course, incredibly damning testimony, if it's true. and she testified to it six times. >> alfonsi: and what did you learn? >> baran: that clemmie was not telling the truth. >> alfonsi: clemmie fleming admitted to the podcast that she didn't remember when she saw flowers running. in november, we spoke to her in winona, where she still lives. you saw curtis running through town? >> fleming: yeah. >> alfonsi: but you weren't sure. >> fleming: i wasn't sure what day it was. i really-- it happened, but i don't know what day it was. >> alfonsi: did you ever tell the prosecutors, "hey, i'm not sure about the day that i saw"? >> fleming: yeah. >> alfonsi: and what did they say? >> fleming: they ain't want to hear that. they just wanted me to tell what i seen. they don't want to worry about what day i seen it.

>> alfonsi: another key witness also recanted to "in the dark." odell "cookie" hallmon, a career criminal, had testified that curtis flowers confessed to him in prison. producer samara freemark tracked down hallmon in parchman prison. and how were you talking to him? >> freemark: well, it turns out he had an illicit cell phone. he would set up a blanket fort to talk so the guards wouldn't-- wouldn't be able to see him. so he would sort of hang blankets up over his bunk, and hide in there. >> alfonsi: eventually, he admitted to freemark that he made the story up about curtis confessing. this is hallmon on the phone from prison. >> hallmon: as far as him telling me he killed some people, hell, naw, he ain't never told me that. that was a lie. >> alfonsi: the podcast reported that after hallmon came forward with the phony confession, he cut generous deals with prosecutors for years and avoided punishment for multiple felony charges. while he was free, in 2016, he murdered three people and was

finally sentenced to life in prison. >> freemark: remember this is that-- that really beautiful music. >> alfonsi: the revelations turned "in the dark" into a sensation. the podcast was downloaded 42 million times. but curtis flowers could not listen to it. he was on death row in parchman prison, reading transcripts of the podcast. and you're reading about these witnesses finally recanting their stories. >> flowers: i think my first reaction was, it's about time. ( laughs ) and i was just ready to go home. >> alfonsi: as flowers waited on death row, the podcast team continued unraveling his case by scouring closed jails and abandoned factories for clues and documents. >> freemark: we had to go and search them out like we were on a treasure hunt. >> baran: and you're, like, "what are those mounds in the corner," you know? and you're like, "oh, those are public records for this county." and then you go through it and you're like, "these are covered in mouse droppings. they're covered in mold." >> alfonsi: they also analyzed decades of court data that

revealed prosecutor doug evans had a history of excluding black people from juries at a disproportionate rate. across all of curtis flowers' trials, 61 of the 72 jurors were white. all 61 voted to convict. those numbers reverberated far beyond mississippi. in 2019, the u.s. supreme court ruled that evans and the state of mississippi had violated curtis flowers' constitutional rights, and overturned his conviction. justice brett kavanaugh wrote that there was a "relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals." six months later, curtis flowers was released on bail. he walked out of jail with a monitor on his ankle, and his sisters on his arms. >> how are you feeling right now? >> flowers: i feel good. i'm happy i'm out. >> alfonsi: for the first time in 23 years, he was out. >> flowers: and i'm telling you,

i felt like i was floating. i was just ready to go. >> alfonsi: in september, the ankle monitor came off. the mississippi attorney general's office dismissed all charges against curtis flowers. it wrote that, "it is in the interest of justice that the state will not seek an unprecedented seventh trial of mr. flowers." in november, doug evans, the man who prosecuted curtis flowers six times, sat down with us in his office for a rare interview. why did you prosecute him again and again? >> doug evans: because i knew he was guilty. and the families knew he was guilty. and the families deserve justice. >> alfonsi: but what about now that those witnesses have changed their stories? >> evans: i don't think-- know, that any of them have changed their stories. >> alfonsi: well, clemmie, odell. >> evans: but that's not in court, under oath. >> alfonsi: do you think that curtis could get a fair trial when the jury is predominately white?

>> evans: yes. race has nothing to do with our part of what we do. a lot of times, race gets thrown in as an excuse, if there is no defense. >> alfonsi: justice brett kavanaugh wrote there seemed to be a "relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals." that's from the supreme court. >> evans: and i can't understand that. basically, what he is doing is accusing me, like he was accused, before he was put on the supreme court. >> alfonsi: evans says he never listened to the podcast, but is convinced "in the dark" set out to discredit his case. the way this is being presented now was that it was a weak case, that there were no fingerprints, there was no d.n.a., there was no witness that puts him at the crime scene. there's these string of witnesses that say they saw him on the street. >> evans: oh, you've got a witness that sees him walk in the front door. that's about as close as you can get. >> alfonsi: but over six trials, no witness ever testified to seeing curtis flowers walk in

the front door at tardy furniture. evans then made another startling claim. you would think that because the murders were so gruesome, you know, nobody saw him covered in blood or anything like that? >> evans: well, there were people that saw him burning clothes after that, but we weren't able to introduce that either. supposedly, they saw him burning clothes and a pair of tennis shoes. >> alfonsi: where did that happen? >> evans: it was outside his house, in that area over there. >> alfonsi: but in 12,000 pages of pre-trial hearings and trial proceedings that we reviewed, we couldn't find any mention of that story. rob mcduff, curtis flowers' lawyer, said that's because it never happened. >> mcduff: ( laughs ) you know, it is just preposterous that doug evans continues to say these things. but he's been called out on his deceptions, he's been called out on his misconduct time and time and time again.

>> flowers: i believe every case doug evans ever handled should be looked into. i truly do. i-- i-- lord knows i would hate to see this happen to someone else. >> alfonsi: curtis flowers is now 50 years old. he spent nearly half his life in prison. in november, during a visit to see his family in winona, he told us the adjustment has been slow. >> flowers: i'm so used to being in shackles, making little baby steps. >> alfonsi: really? >> flowers: so then, when, you know, i'm turned loose and able to step like i want to, yeah, it takes a lot of wind. >> alfonsi: you couldn't walk normally? >> flowers: yeah, i had to adjust to it. >> alfonsi: because you were always in shackles? >> flowers: yes. ♪ oh, oh lord >> alfonsi: but somehow, after 23 years, the former gospel singer never lost his voice. ♪ let me come home let me come home ♪

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( ticking ) >> wertheim: when the german pianist, igor levit, was selected as the featured soloist of the nobel prize ceremony last month, it marked yet another grace note in a career that's quickly grown filled with awards and honors. in line for a grammy later this month, levit is 33, and already among the brightest stars in the classical music cosmos. but lately, as the pandemic mutes and muffles so much music, levit's performances have been mostly streaming over twitter from his berlin living room.

as igor levit plays in a new way to a new audience, he's reached a conclusion: music is not an extravagance, but a life necessity. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ igor levit is, to mix musical genres, a rock star. here he is inside london's royal albert hall for the opening at the proms in 2017, one of the oldest and most anticipated festivals on the concert calendar. ♪ ♪ a typically glowing review described the performance as" fiery," "magical," and" elegant."

take a look at how levit curls over his instrument. at odds with every piano teacher's demand for perfect posture, it's almost as if levit is physically becoming part of the music he is conjuring. ♪ ♪ we sometimes think of musicians as-- they don't mind the isolation. they can be disengaged. i get the feeling you need that connection with an audience. >> igor levit: i couldn't live without that. since my very childhood, what i care about are people-- >> wertheim: always. >> levit: always. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> wertheim: even in this vast and venerable concert hall, this german musician has a way of creating an intimacy with his audience. ♪ ♪ then, in march, the pandemic hit. his tour dates cancelled, that intimacy evaporated. ( applause )

in many ways, the lockdown turned your world on its head. >> levit: it's a disaster-- >> wertheim: technicians and the lighting-- >> levit: a disaster. agents, managers. >> wertheim: what happens? >> levit: they lose everything, from one day to the other. the loss is-- by 100%. it's a total disaster. >> wertheim: it could have been a disaster for levit, a hipster, suddenly grounded at home in an edgy pocket of berlin. >> levit: i can't just make music for myself. it's just not-- not the-- not the way i operate. i can't, emotionally. so, i had this idea to bring one of the most classic ways of music making, which is the house concert, to bring it-- to try to bring it into the 21st century. so, how do i do it? so i invite the people into my living room in the only way possible, which is through social media. >> wertheim: first, he tweeted out an invitation to his followers. >> levit: like that's it. >> wertheim: next, he rushed out to buy a cheap camera stand, hastily rigged his iphone, self-administered a tutorial in live-streaming, and then, it was

showtime. (♪ "moonlight sonata" ♪) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ the first house concert drew a virtual crowd of 350,000. sounds kind of liberating. >> levit: it's completely transformed me, who i am, how i see the world. >> wertheim: that would seem to dramatically change the boundaries between a performer and the audience. >> levit: it-- yeah, it was just me, no hall, no questions about acoustics, no questions about an instrument, no questions about, you know, pre-printed programs, nothing. no boundaries, just-- just myself and the people. (♪ "rhapsody in blue" ♪) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> wertheim: he had his classical repertoire, but added soul and jazz and rock. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ for 52 consecutive nights of live concerts, his followers joined from all over the world,

unbothered by the tinny sound of his piano when it lapsed out of tune. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ they kept coming; he kept playing. >> levit: because of the pandemic. and so, what usually must be right was wrong, and it didn't matter. because just-- just the fact that there was music, no matter how it sounded, just the fact that there was some kind of togetherness. just-- just this was enough for people to feel better. it was enough for me to feel better. >> wertheim: so much better, he next streamed what was less a challenge to his musical talents than to his musical stamina. the "vexations" is not exactly a reliable crowd-pleaser. ♪ ♪ >> levit: the "vexations," which is a very odd, very weird-- kind of non-music piece. it doesn't really make sense. starts with one hand alone, and you play a weird variation. then you play it-- same thing again. one hand alone, then you play another variation. (♪ "vexations" ♪)

>> wertheim: french surrealist composer erik satie intended this piece to be played through 840 times. the repetition can be almost hypnotic, known to cause performers to hallucinate. one complained of seeing bugs crawling between the keys. levit played this piece for 16 hours straight. igor, that sounds like torture, not music. >> levit: well-- "vexations," right? ( laughs ) i rest my case. and so, i thought, "wow, that's the perfect match for this time." (♪ "vexations" ♪) and i could focus with this performance on the emotional and mental state of mind of my world, of the performance world which is hopelessness, confusion, and give, like, a silent scream, like the end of the third part of "the godfather." >> wertheim: you survived? >> levit: i not only survive, i was high as a monkey afterwards. i mean, i was-- i was just flying.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> wertheim: levit took flight early, playing beethoven's "sonata number 2," winning a prestigious rubinstein prize as a teenager. he was born in nizhny novgorod, russia. that's where he played his first concert with a full orchestra. when he was eight, he and his family moved to germany as jewish refugees. his mother was a piano teacher, but paired her talented son with a taskmaster who demanded levit practice that same beethoven's "sonata number 2" for years on end. levit says he was an angry and unhappy adolescent who flirted with quitting piano. ♪ ♪ >> levit: i was a 15-year-old boy. like, i-- you know, i wanted to do all kinds of things, but not play the same piece over and over and over and over and over again. ( ♪ eminem's "the way i am" ) >> wertheim: so, how does a burned-out piano prodigy get his mojo back? channeling eminem, and his

single "the way i am." ♪ ♪ >> levit: i am who i am. and i am. and the way i am, just-- deal with it. and sort it out for yourself. so, i would listen to the song, like, nonstop. walkman. ( clap ) ( laughs ) in my hand. it was, like, in a loop, the rhythmical-- ( clap ) persistence, the-- the-- the lyrical persistence. it's so-- it's so beethovian, you know, in a way. >> wertheim: slim shady's helping you understand beethoven? >> levit: slim shady-- understanding myself, yeah. >> wertheim: beethoven obviously means a great deal to you. you said he's-- he's around you. he's in practically everything you do. >> levit: in-- in a weird way, beethoven's music is my safe zone. it's music which gives me, which gives the audience, the feeling of participation. at some point, you-- you get this feeling like, "oh, this is about me. this is about me." like, you know. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ right. >> wertheim: that's how you feel? >> levit: this feeling of "s.o.s., help, what is happening here?" ( laughs ) both for me as a player and for the listener. so, i'm not trying to explain something to you. i want to encourage you to understand. ( snap ) hey, whatever you feel, it's-- it's you. it's your music. it's your piece. and so-- beethoven-- beethoven's music kind of creates this link between the player, the music, the audience. this triangle is enormously intense. >> wertheim: and yet, you could've played a different piece with that same triangle and a completely different range of emotions. >> levit: completely. i could, you know, anything, you know? >> wertheim: what about sadness? >> levit: well, that's a wide topic. i mean, what kind of sadness? >> wertheim: say, mournful sadness?

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> wertheim: in a part of the world that knows a bit about musical genius, levit may be consumed by a composer born 250 years ago, but he is also the quintessential creature of the present. levit doesn't drive, but in between lockdowns in october, we tooled around with him on one of his many bikes. when did you feel like a german here? you came when you were eight years old. immediately? >> levit: when i felt like a german? >> wertheim: i don't know, when did you feel-- >> levit: oh, wow, that's-- >> wertheim: ( speaking german ) >> levit: that, mr. wertheim, is a very german question. >> wertheim: levit takes his citizenship seriously. at a protest against the destruction of this forest last month, levit bundled up and played in solidarity.

the environment is one of his many causes. he's adamant, as he puts it, not to be the guy who just pushes piano keys. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ when a neo-nazi carried out a deadly attack outside a synagogue in the german city of halle in 2019, levit used his appearance at germany's most prestigious music award ceremony to speak out against right-wing extremism and anti-semitism. levit has been told to his face that he has no right to be in germany. more alarmingly, before the pandemic, he received online death threats, forcing him to take the stage under armed police guard. his activist politics have provoked attacks on multiple fronts. as a jew, you were an outsider. >> levit: correct. "i will find you on that day in wiesbaden and will kill you while you're on stage." both of them take a rubber and

try to erase you from-- from mother earth, both of them. one of them intellectually, the other one physically. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> wertheim: the sedate cocoon of classical music isn't accustomed to death threats and talks of erasure. but then again, igor levit cuts a singular figure. and in the days of soaring covid rates and depleting concert dates, he plays on. in munich, we caught up with him for a rare performance that wasn't cancelled. there was no hum of anticipation in the lobby, no bustling coat check, and the audience-- it was restricted to just 50 people. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ mozart was on the menu. a canopy of notes, sharply rendered, filled the air.

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>> alfonsi: next sunday on "60 minutes," lesley stahl with house speaker nancy pelosi. a new president, the democrats' slim house majority, and a restive young house progressive bloc have the speaker under

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