Inside CECOT – 60 Minutes [video]

Suppression of the 60 Minutes Segment

• Many commenters see CBS’s decision to pull the Cecot segment as overt political censorship to protect the current administration and advance corporate interests (e.g., merger/antitrust approval).
• Others note that footage of Cecot and its abuses was already widely reported; they argue the segment wasn’t uniquely revelatory, and that the key difference is the weight and audience of 60 Minutes, not the raw facts.
• The accidental upload by a Canadian partner, and the subsequent availability on Archive.org and YouTube, are framed as classic “Streisand effect”: an attempt to bury the piece amplified its reach.

Bari Weiss’s Role and Editorial Justifications

• An internal email from the new editorial lead outlines demands for more administration perspective, more detail on criminal histories and charges, and a fuller explanation of legal rationale.
• Supporters say this looks like standard “do more reporting” and context-adding, especially given the seriousness of the claims.
• Critics see it as a pretext: insisting on on‑record participation from officials who already refused to comment effectively grants them veto power; focusing on “charges” undermines presumption of innocence; and the legal framing allegedly misstates the administration’s own arguments.
• Broader discussion portrays her as part of a pattern: self‑branding as a defender of free debate while backing or enabling censorship when it serves ideological or patron interests.

Ethics and Legality of Deportations to Cecot

• Commenters emphasize that many of the 252 Venezuelans deported to Cecot had no U.S. convictions, with some having entered legally; sending them into indefinite, torturous detention without trial is described as a betrayal of U.S. constitutional principles and human rights norms.
• Several label Cecot a concentration camp rather than a prison, stressing the absence of due process and the intent of permanent disappearance.
• A minority argue that Cecot dramatically reduced homicides in El Salvador and that concern for the rights of gang members is misplaced; others rebut that torture is prohibited irrespective of crime and that many deportees were not gang members at all.

Archiving, Distribution, and Info Control

• Users rapidly mirror the segment via Archive.org torrents, magnet links, and alternative video hosts; many volunteer to seed “for a cause.”
• There’s praise for Archive.org and simultaneous anxiety over potential DMCA takedowns, leading to calls for more decentralized, non‑U.S.-centric preservation.

HN Moderation, Flags, and Perceived Bias

• Numerous comments note that multiple posts about the segment were flagged or killed, sparking accusations that HN is suppressing anti‑Trump or anti‑oligarch content.
• Others counter that HN is designed to downweight outrage‑driven political stories; moderators explain that flags are balanced by upvotes and that the front page is intentionally curated away from constant political drama.
• Debate widens into whether certain outlets (e.g., 404media) are unfairly penalized, and whether a small ideological cohort exploits flagging to shape the visible discourse.