[HN Gopher] Inside CECOT - 60 Minutes [video]
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Inside CECOT - 60 Minutes [video]
        
       https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2025/12/23/6...
        
       Author : lawlessone
       Score  : 1456 points
       Date   : 2025-12-23 00:36 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (archive.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (archive.org)
        
       | kg wrote:
       | For context, this report was suppressed by CBS News' new
       | leadership, most likely to appease the US government.
        
         | owlninja wrote:
         | A little more context if needed (free link):
         | 
         | https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/business/60-minutes-trump...
        
       | scratchyone wrote:
       | I have a feeling this will get DMCA-ed off of Internet Archive in
       | an attempt to suppress it. Here's the infohash of the archive.org
       | torrent download for future reference, this should allow the file
       | to be retrieved in any torrent client as long as someone in the
       | world is seeding it still.
       | 
       | 8105370ed7dba50dc7ec659fd67550569b4dd8a0
        
         | evil-olive wrote:
         | here it is, in magnet link form:                   magnet:?xt=u
         | rn:btih:734abc77f48d11c78543c52004b6f57db71d6d92&dn=60minutes-c
         | ecotsegment&xl=1483256352&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%3A696
         | 9%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&
         | ws=http://ia601703.us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=http://ia801703.
         | us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=https://archive.org/download/
         | 
         | (exported from my currently-seeding torrent client, then pasted
         | into a separate torrent client, to verify that it works
         | correctly)
        
           | ProllyInfamous wrote:
           | Hey there _seed buddy_... I 'm about to become the fourth web
           | seed.
           | 
           | We're not going anywhere.
           | 
           | --Hydra
        
           | JakeStone wrote:
           | It's ridiculous that this has to be done.
           | 
           | I'm honestly speechless. But thanks for the magnet link.
        
           | vlachen wrote:
           | I left the high seas many years ago, but I'm down to seed for
           | a cause.
           | 
           | What's the best torrent client nowadays?
        
             | josh_p wrote:
             | qbittorrent is still regarded as independent and safe, I
             | think.
             | 
             | https://www.qbittorrent.org/
             | 
             | I'm still using it happily on windows/linux.
             | 
             | Don't forget your vpn!
        
               | vlachen wrote:
               | That brings me to the next thing: Taking VPN suggestions.
               | What's the best? I like secure.
               | 
               | Edited to remove being a moron.
        
               | x13 wrote:
               | proton
        
               | rpdillon wrote:
               | Mullvad. The only VPN company I actually trust.
        
               | utrack wrote:
               | It's important though that Mullvad doesn't do port
               | forwarding; you won't be able to seed effectively
        
               | michaelmrose wrote:
               | Then you probably don't want a free service that costs
               | money to run where they can only make money by converting
               | most users to paid or monetizing your information in a
               | country where you are unlikely to have an attorney whilst
               | operating what amounts to a honeypot for every government
               | on earth.
               | 
               | That said protonvpn seems reputable
        
               | vlachen wrote:
               | That's a fair point that I arrived at once I put half a
               | second of thought into what I was actually asking.
        
               | theblazehen wrote:
               | Mullvad
        
               | josh_p wrote:
               | I pay for proton. It works. I'm not as security conscious
               | as I should be but it's pretty much a set and forget
               | thing aside from changing ports.
        
             | immibis wrote:
             | qBittorrent
        
             | squarefoot wrote:
             | Qbittorrent, Transmission etc. The Transmission daemon can
             | be installed headless with negligible system load on a vast
             | number of devices, from Raspberry Pi-like and smaller SBCs
             | to Linux/BSD NASes, then operated from remote through the
             | web interface or a phone app.
        
             | Modified3019 wrote:
             | I'm of the opinion that would be mullvad.
             | 
             | RTings recently updated their reviews and seems to agree:
             | 
             | https://www.rtings.com/vpn/reviews/best/privacy
             | 
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i_BB2uFYYA
        
         | mrjay42 wrote:
         | Seeding :3
        
         | chakintosh wrote:
         | r/DataHoarder is already on it
        
           | embedding-shape wrote:
           | Yup, reddit subreddit sure seems like a good place for "anti-
           | american" discussions.
           | 
           | Where are the independent and non-VC fueled discussion forums
           | when you need them?
        
         | blast wrote:
         | It will be a second dose of Streisand if they do.
        
         | mistersquid wrote:
         | Senator Corey Booker's YouTube channel posted the archived
         | video about 9am EST.
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiehEMlNiCI
        
       | pavel_lishin wrote:
       | There are other links here as well:
       | https://www.404media.co/archivists-posted-the-60-minutes-cec...
        
         | tastyface wrote:
         | 404media is shadowbanned from HN for nebulous reasons. The mods
         | should really revisit this policy: they've been doing some
         | great reporting recently.
        
           | pyvpx wrote:
           | Has there been any mention of reasoning behind it?
        
             | snowwrestler wrote:
             | I asked last year and was told 404 is the source of too
             | many copycat low quality posts and they have a paywall. In
             | the year since, a bunch of their original reporting has hit
             | the front page and driven interesting discussions.
        
               | abraham wrote:
               | Just to clarify for anyone reading. 404 does not have a
               | paywall. They have an account wall. Some articles require
               | you to be signed into a free account to read.
        
               | snowwrestler wrote:
               | For comparison, the Wall Street Journal does have a
               | paywall but is not a banned site.
        
               | metadope wrote:
               | And 404 is also _not_ banned, right?
               | 
               | As a noob here on HN, that's what I gathered from your
               | previous comment:
               | 
               | > In the year since, a bunch of their original reporting
               | has hit the front page
               | 
               | So, a year ago, before my time, 404 media was moderated
               | in a way that seemed like a ban, but now it no longer
               | appears to be shadowbanned, is that what I'm learning?
        
               | mrguyorama wrote:
               | Don't forget that complaining about paywalls is actually
               | against the rules. So how did the site get that ban in
               | the first place?
        
           | NaOH wrote:
           | There's nothing nebulous; there's no workaround for
           | 404media's articles.
           | 
           |  _Tell HN: Paywalls with workarounds are OK; paywall
           | complaints are off topic_ -
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989 - Sept 2015
           | (160 comments)
        
             | scratchyone wrote:
             | It seems to work for me? https://archive.ph/sr0sd
        
               | NaOH wrote:
               | Maybe that's new? Either way, great to know.
        
           | defrost wrote:
           | _A16z-backed Doublespeed hacked, revealing what its AI-
           | generated accounts promote_ (404media.co)                 289
           | points by grahamlee 5 days ago | flag | past | 171 comments
           | 
           | so some slip through.
           | 
           | But: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=404media.co sure
           | has a _lot_ of [dead]
        
             | UncleMeat wrote:
             | Don't forget that the mods tried to remove the reference to
             | a16z from the title on that one.
        
               | tomhow wrote:
               | I tried to make the title fit the guidelines and the
               | character limit, then changed it when the community
               | explained why it was important for A16Z to be in the
               | title.
               | 
               | Why do people think we're motivated to "suppress"
               | negative stories about A16Z? They've been criticized
               | forever here and we've never had a problem with it. All
               | we care about is whether a topic makes for an interesting
               | discussion on HN.
               | 
               | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
               | que...
               | 
               | https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&
               | que...
        
               | QuadmasterXLII wrote:
               | To answer your literal question of "why do people
               | think..."
               | 
               | For a while there was a widespread standing principle to
               | not assume malice for actions that could be explained as
               | a simple mistake. If only one person follows this policy,
               | it's great. However, so many people were following this
               | policy that it created massive incentives to disguise
               | profit motivated malice as explainable accidents. We're
               | in the midst of a massive backswing against this.
               | 
               | So, there is very little taste for patience when agents
               | of ycombinator make mistakes that benefit a16z such as
               | accidentally removing them from the title of a negative
               | article, due to the billions of dollars entangling
               | ycombinator with the reputation of a16z. This is not
               | because it wasn't an accident- it's because any culture
               | of patience with this will lead (and has led) to an
               | explosion of copycat whoopsies.
        
               | Teever wrote:
               | > Why do people think we're motivated to "suppress"
               | negative stories about A16Z?
               | 
               | I think a more charitable interpretation of this kind of
               | argument is that the money and power that entities like
               | A16Z have make the possibility of corruption of
               | endeavours like HN trivial.
               | 
               | In light of the ease in which a wealthy entity like A16Z
               | can exert influence over an entity like HN and the track
               | records of various A16Z adjacent/similar people doing
               | similar things to other HN-like entities it's very
               | natural that people are concerned about the possibility
               | of similar things happening here.
               | 
               | Like it or not as an editor at HN you're in a position of
               | power and influence and others with far greater power
               | would certainly leverage what you have here if suited
               | their interests.
               | 
               | Avoiding even the appearance of impropriety is no easy
               | task especially in this medium and I don't envy you in
               | taking it on, but it's an essential part of something
               | like HN. If the users in aggregate don't trust the
               | moderation process or the administrators then this all
               | sort of falls apart and the interesting discussion
               | suffers.
        
               | UncleMeat wrote:
               | And I believe that the mods thinking that a16z was the
               | least critical part of the headline such that it could be
               | cut for space reasons is a _huge_ concern. I 'm glad that
               | you changed your mind. But the fact that it was needed
               | worries me and the fact that you can't understand why
               | people were upset is worse.
               | 
               | There doesn't need to be an explicit effort to protect vc
               | firms for your blind spots to shape conversation on this
               | website away from criticizing them.
        
             | tastyface wrote:
             | I believe they all start out dead, and enough people have
             | to vouch to make the article visible and commentable.
        
           | drweevil wrote:
           | My own experience is that they've been solid throughout.
           | Certainly better than many other options, at a time when the
           | technical press has been generally disappointing.
        
           | esseph wrote:
           | Because they've literally been creating stories about A16Z.
           | 
           | I've posted about some and they just get instaflagged or
           | hidden.
        
       | slg wrote:
       | I'm reminded of the Letter on Justice and Open Debate[1] that
       | Bari Weiss signed only a few years ago, now she's spiking stories
       | like this one on CECOT for showing the current administration in
       | a negative light.
       | 
       | I also wonder if this story will get the type of leeway to stay
       | on HN to collect the 200+ upvotes and 300+ comments of that
       | previous example or if it will be flagged off the front page
       | within minutes like so many other similar stories.
       | 
       | EDIT: No idea how long this post actually lasted, but checking in
       | an hour later to see this has been flagged completely off the
       | first 10 pages of HN despite getting close to that 200 point
       | total.
       | 
       | [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23759283
        
         | cdrnsf wrote:
         | She was hired following the acquisition of Paramount to do
         | things exactly like this. She's not a journalist.
        
           | dralley wrote:
           | Literally not a journalist. She went from the opinion pages
           | to writing opinion on substack. And for "some reason" was put
           | in charge of a news organization.
        
             | derektank wrote:
             | She has worked as a staff editor in newsrooms, most notably
             | at Tablet. It's not accurate to say her career has solely
             | been in the opinion section.
             | 
             | Also, it's not unheard of for people working on the op-ed
             | side of the house to become editors in chief. Most notable
             | example I can think of would be Katharine Viner at the
             | Guardian. And in the reverse, James Bennet went from being
             | editor in chief at the Atlantic to running the op-ed page
             | at the NYT.
        
               | UncleMeat wrote:
               | I wouldn't exactly use James Bennet as a _successful_
               | example here.
        
               | skywhopper wrote:
               | Are you actually arguing that she was a qualified choice
               | for this role at CBS?
        
               | criddell wrote:
               | You'd have to know the qualifying criteria to know for
               | sure.
               | 
               | I suspect she was hired at least in part because she
               | would be willing to take the heat for stuff like this,
        
               | SmirkingRevenge wrote:
               | Her upward trajectory has been facilitated mainly through
               | pleasing select silicon valley billionaires by echoing
               | their views back to them in her ironically named The Free
               | Press outlet, which they also helped found.
        
               | UncleMeat wrote:
               | This really is the future of journalism. Just make
               | content that a few deranged billionaires like and rise up
               | and up and up and up. CBS doesn't have to care whether
               | ordinary people like it. What matters is the asshole with
               | billions of dollars.
        
               | woooooo wrote:
               | Ok, so with charity she's a marginally qualified 150
               | million dollar aquihire? In journalism?
        
               | justin66 wrote:
               | She's never been a reporter, and even in the kindest
               | interpretation of her actions, it's starting to show.
        
               | aksnsbba wrote:
               | > most notably at Tablet
               | 
               | She is more or less an Israeli propaganda agent. She was
               | hired at CBS because, after purchasing CBS from Zionist
               | Shari Redstone, Zionist Larry Ellison and his son needed
               | a reliable Zionist editor in chief. Weiss' primary
               | qualifications are her extremely pro Israeli career path.
               | 
               | Larry Ellison needed a woman like Weiss because he's
               | invested in Israel's success. He's both a close personal
               | friend of Netanyahu and the number one private donor to
               | the IDF. Netanyahu has declared US public perception of
               | Israel as the 8th front of their war, and Ellison (with
               | the help of Trump) is doing his part stateside.
               | 
               | Why we have so many powerful "Americans" exercising their
               | power on behalf of a foreign country is the real
               | discussion here.
        
               | diogenescynic wrote:
               | Hundreds of comments and the only one speaking the truth
               | is downvoted. Bari Weiss is unqualified and the only
               | reason she was put into this position is to be a useful
               | idiot for Israel.
        
         | empath75 wrote:
         | Everyone who signed that letter was either a dupe or a fraud.
        
           | timcobb wrote:
           | You gotta give us more than that
        
             | UncleMeat wrote:
             | The signatories have spent years attacking free expression.
             | A particularly acute case is when it comes to things like
             | advocating for the end of israeli occupation in palestine,
             | but there are many others. Whining about BLM is a
             | particularly common approach for Thomas Chatterton
             | Williams.
             | 
             | The signatories have generally _continued_ to complain
             | about censoriousness from the left even while the right
             | wing is detaining people for their speech, insisting that
             | media personalities be fired for their speech, insisting
             | that people (including naturalized citizens) be deported
             | for their speech, cancelling grants because they are too
             | "woke", and straight up passing laws banning the teaching
             | of certain topics in secondary and postsecondary school.
             | 
             | Weiss herself is a participant with UATX, a expressly right
             | wing university that has fired people for not being
             | sufficiently critical of DEI efforts.
             | 
             | Weiss also has a long history of efforts to stifle the
             | public debate that the signatories claim to support. The
             | _first_ thing that got her notoriety was an effort to get
             | various professors at Columbia fired for their speech.
        
               | djl0 wrote:
               | I think you're really off base. A quick search about what
               | Williams has said about censorship on the right seems to
               | undermine your one non-weiss example [1]. There were more
               | than a hundred signatories from across a fairly wide
               | political spectrum (and the letter itself was anti-
               | Trump). The handful of signatories that I follow have
               | squarely denounced right wing censoriousness - I'm open
               | to hearing that I'm seeing a non-representative sample,
               | but you didn't provide any useful info on that front.
               | 
               | [1]
               | https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/woke-
               | right...
        
               | UncleMeat wrote:
               | Notice how this article frames the entire thing as caused
               | by the left and happily ignores the fact that what is
               | happening under Trump is not new. Were the excesses of
               | the left the cause of the Stop Woke Act in Florida? The
               | right has been screaming about firing professors since
               | God and Man at Yale was published. In my opinion, this is
               | not anything resembling a serious accounting of the
               | threats to speech from the right.
               | 
               | And you can compare this article against the _entire
               | book_ that he published about the left 's flaws this
               | year. On one hand we've got an article critical of the
               | right that finds the need to smuggle criticisms of the
               | left in constantly and on the other hand we have a
               | complete manuscript. You tell me where Williams is
               | focusing his attention.
        
               | djl0 wrote:
               | In terms of the actual topic, I would be shocked if
               | Williams approved of spiking the CECOT 60 mins story, if
               | it is in fact politically motivated as many suspect. And
               | I'm not particularly a "fan" of Williams or anything,
               | though I've heard him on a couple of podcasts.
               | 
               | But you're also making this point about all signatories
               | being hypocrites because you seemingly have a big bone to
               | pick with the amount of blame Thomas Chatterton Williams
               | portions to each side.
        
               | UncleMeat wrote:
               | So, can we see him writing about how this was a bad
               | thing?
               | 
               | Williams is a public intellectual. What goes on in his
               | mind is of much less importance to public discourse than
               | what he writes.
               | 
               | Let me be clear. I believe that Williams is a hypocrite
               | and I believe that the large majority of the signatories
               | on the harpers letter are hypocrites. I mention him
               | specifically because he was one of the people who
               | actually wrote a lot of its text rather than just signing
               | it, which makes him of particular interest for this
               | discussion.
        
         | UncleMeat wrote:
         | Weiss got her _start_ screaming about how various college
         | professors should be fired. There has never once been a moment
         | in her career where she seriously cared about open debate.
        
           | drewbeck wrote:
           | Or journalistic principles.
        
           | spankibalt wrote:
           | Indeed. Weiss came up as conservative troll and engagement
           | farmer, and was hired as such by Ellison.
        
         | martythemaniak wrote:
         | You can't understand technology without understanding the
         | people behind it. I always wonder about all these non-bot
         | people who support her: is it that they're in on the grift and
         | everyone understands that she's just there as a wink-wink-
         | totaly-not state censor, or do they genuinely fall for her
         | schtick? Is there something else? I never quite get it.
         | 
         | A once-reasonable friend of mine genuinely thinks RJK is just
         | some dude who tries his best, and doesn't consider him a crazy
         | anti-vaxxer. Crazy
        
           | mananaysiempre wrote:
           | > just some dude who tries his best, and doesn't consider him
           | a crazy anti-vaxxer
           | 
           | As much as it would be comforting for all dudes who're trying
           | their best to pretend otherwise, the two are _not_ mutually
           | exclusive. (No opinion on whether RFK Jr is in the
           | intersection--I'm not in the US and couldn't affect his
           | actions if I tried.)
        
           | joncrane wrote:
           | >is it that they're in on the grift and everyone understands
           | that she's just there as a wink-wink-totaly-not state censor,
           | or do they genuinely fall for her schtick?
           | 
           | It's both. That's one of the things that's difficult to suss
           | out and therefore have a plan to engage. There's plausible
           | deniability on both ends of that spectrum. Even in the high
           | positions in the administration, there's a smattering of True
           | Believers in amongst the grifters.
        
         | lostlogin wrote:
         | A similar post with comments linking to this thread just got
         | marked as a duplicate, taking it off the front page.
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46361571
        
       | tastyface wrote:
       | As a companion piece, here is ProPublica's recent report trying
       | to determine who exactly was sent to this torture camp:
       | https://projects.propublica.org/venezuelan-immigrants-trump-...
        
         | estearum wrote:
         | Another good piece from right-leaning Cato Institute:
         | https://www.cato.org/blog/50-venezuelans-imprisoned-el-salva...
        
       | cdrnsf wrote:
       | Additional context:
       | 
       | > The Trump administration has repeatedly claimed that the men
       | sent to El Salvador were overwhelmingly violent criminals; Pro
       | Publica reported that the administration knew at least 197 of the
       | men had not been convicted of crimes in the United States, and
       | six had been convicted of violent offenses.
       | 
       | https://www.404media.co/archivists-posted-the-60-minutes-cec...
        
       | LarsDu88 wrote:
       | How long before Hackernews takes this one down?
        
         | scratchyone wrote:
         | It's wiped from the front page already
        
           | oliwarner wrote:
           | And it's back.
        
         | JeremyNT wrote:
         | * * *
        
       | ProllyInfamous wrote:
       | <https://www.muellershewrote.com/p/watch-the-60-minutes-cecot...>
       | 
       | This is disgraceful [0], whatever your opinion on illegal
       | immigration.
       | 
       | [0] deporting non-citizens to 3rd-party countries/prisons
        
         | throw0101c wrote:
         | > _[0] deporting non-citizens to 3rd-party countries /prisons_
         | 
         | See perhaps United States Declaration of Independence:
         | 
         | > _" For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended
         | offenses:"_
         | 
         | *
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievances_of_the_United_State...
        
           | saagarjha wrote:
           | Ah, but you see, they're not _us_. They 're _them_.
        
           | dzdt wrote:
           | In this case there wasn't even any trial, here or abroad.
           | Just sent to the torture gulag with zero process whatsoever.
           | So its even worse than that.
        
             | throw0101c wrote:
             | > _In this case there wasn 't even any trial, here or
             | abroad._
             | 
             | Above is #19; see #18:
             | 
             | > _" For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Jury
             | trial:"_
             | 
             | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grievances_of_the_United_St
             | ate...
        
         | justin66 wrote:
         | Even calling it "deportation" is far too charitable towards
         | what they've done. Deportation involves sending them back to
         | their home countries or, if that's unsafe, to another country.
         | These people were rendered to a prison where they're meant to
         | spend the rest of their lives, without any of the due process
         | even a foreigner who had committed a crime would normally be
         | accorded in the United States under our constitution.
        
           | estearum wrote:
           | Great point and I'll add, by "would normally be accorded" you
           | of course mean "is legally entitled to by our nation's
           | foundational document."
        
           | ndsipa_pomu wrote:
           | Just to clarify - a prison without due process is more
           | accurately called a "concentration camp".
           | 
           | "Prison" is for people convicted of crimes.
        
       | empath75 wrote:
       | People in the US now have to use VPN's to get access to domestic
       | news from a foreign country. I think it's fair to say that the
       | wheels have come off democracy and things are badly broken.
        
         | ikamm wrote:
         | There was a PBS doc about it too, CBS is just comprised
        
           | immibis wrote:
           | PBS funding has been cancelled.
        
             | ikamm wrote:
             | Federal funding has been canceled for now. PBS still lives
             | on and who knows what will happen with the next
             | administration.
        
           | JKCalhoun wrote:
           | Frontline: https://youtu.be/Lku5h9xjrqc
        
         | wwweston wrote:
         | Things are bad, but the worst part isn't hidden/missing
         | principled reporting, it's that a significant number of people
         | don't care to attend to it where it exists, domestically or
         | internationally. And a majority of US voters cast their ballot
         | for this outcome, so in a sense it's democracy working as
         | intended, however horrifying any problems or outcomes.
        
           | Alive-in-2025 wrote:
           | Plurality of voters, narrowly, but still it's enough.
           | 
           | How many just vote Republican without thought as they have
           | always done, how many are in the fox news cult? So many
           | people just thought they didn't want a female president or
           | Trump would lower inflation. It's hard for me to accept that
           | Trump represents America, but he represents enough of it.
        
         | drstewart wrote:
         | It's fair to say that, but first please verify your age to
         | access these sites if you're located in the UK
        
       | jmward01 wrote:
       | This is why we need archive.org.
        
         | embedding-shape wrote:
         | Just wish it was distributed instead of such a US-centric
         | organization. For survival, I hope they're thinking about how
         | to make it more decentralized, because eventually the arm of
         | the law is gonna come after them (again), and probably with
         | less mercy this time.
         | 
         | Still a proud supporter of archive.org for many, many years.
         | Their work is invaluable and I hope it stays around forever.
        
       | ChrisArchitect wrote:
       | Archive links are all good in the comments, but let's make the
       | submission url one of the story links with context:
       | 
       |  _CBS defends pulling 60 Minutes segment about Trump
       | deportations_
       | 
       | https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdrnv3keeneo
       | 
       | or
       | 
       |  _'60 Minutes' Pulled a Segment. A Correspondent Calls It
       | 'Political.'_
       | 
       | https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/business/60-minutes-trump...
        
         | g-b-r wrote:
         | The story is exactly that you can watch it on archive.org, most
         | people already heard that it was pulled
        
       | Scoundreller wrote:
       | Funny how it leaked out by sending it off to their Canadian
       | distributor
        
         | idiotsecant wrote:
         | Just another data point in the 'fascists are incompetent'
         | trend. It's pretty lucky that one bug in the human firmware is
         | moderated by another.
        
         | morkalork wrote:
         | Sadly, that's the kind of mistake that only happens once.
        
           | JKCalhoun wrote:
           | What, me worry? Plenty more creative mistakes still to be
           | made...
        
           | Scoundreller wrote:
           | They're going to increase intern pay? Surely you're joking.
        
           | ndsipa_pomu wrote:
           | Maybe not - ordinary people have been known to sabotage
           | fascist regimes by making "mistakes". There's also the issue
           | that incompetent people may be promoted well beyond their
           | abilities due to them being "loyal".
        
         | dripdry45 wrote:
         | Funny how this is timed with the Susie Wiles "I'm an insider
         | trying to do good" nonsense in vanity fair. That coont has been
         | instrumental in so much bad stuff since Reagan...
         | 
         | Looks to me like it's all damage control/pressure valve release
         | stuff designed to distract from any real change. Because SURELY
         | we will get some real change finally, right?? /s
        
       | g-b-r wrote:
       | Something I hadn't heard yet about CECOT:
       | https://www.lemkininstitute.com/single-post/mass-grave-compl...
        
         | dust4brekky wrote:
         | It's worth noting that the founders of the Lemkin Institute
         | have, between them, held multiple leadership roles in reputable
         | academic departments devoted to the study of genocide, and have
         | also both been on the ground during or shortly after genocides
         | or other crimes against humanity as part of international teams
         | tasked with figuring out what happened and how to hold
         | perpetrators accountable. These are not some lightweight
         | bloggers.
         | 
         | The US government, in particular Kristi Noem, Donald Trump, and
         | Marco Rubio, are, by the logic of the legal power they
         | themselves invoked, war criminals who rightly belong in the
         | Hague.
        
         | bgbntty2 wrote:
         | I found this quite interesting, but I don't understand how the
         | articles claims we can see flesh.
         | 
         | And the author's Substack has 2 videos of Trump kissing and
         | patting Bill Clinton's groin area (through pants). They are
         | likely AI because I couldn't find anything online about how
         | they're real besides the original photo. And if they were real,
         | why is no one talking about it? He claims for one of the videos
         | that it's real. So it kind of reduced the author's
         | trustworthiness a bit.
        
       | JKCalhoun wrote:
       | Using the torrent, you should be able to pull it down in a few
       | minutes.
        
       | why-o-why wrote:
       | Too bad the only people that will watch this are people who
       | already understand the terror of what is happening. It might have
       | helped a little if it had aired. My MAGA dad still watches 60
       | Minutes (no idea why, habit?) This _might_ have penetrated his
       | TDS-addled skull if it had aired. But the takeover of CBS by
       | Trump and Ellison (and his 1980 's-college-villain son) with
       | Weiss is complete, and vile.
        
         | suzdude wrote:
         | Maybe suggest he watch? Maybe he's interested in what CBS's
         | leadership refused to tell him.
         | 
         | Streisand Effect and all.
        
           | why-o-why wrote:
           | I debated asking, but I talk to him only a few times a year
           | and we both work really hard to avoid politics. I realize it
           | is my responsibility if I want to see change, but I just lack
           | the skills.
        
             | mlrtime wrote:
             | Your (positive) relationship with him is way more important
             | than trying to change his mind politically.
        
               | Alive-in-2025 wrote:
               | This parental situation is sadly repeated endlessly in
               | the US. My dad is a wealthy retired tech executive whose
               | mind was seemingly taken over by Fox News. He's kind of
               | now in an anti democratic cult and he gets angry if he is
               | even exposed to other news sources.
        
         | kristopolous wrote:
         | In any media, people only see what they want. There's a
         | psychological term for this, Motivated Reasoning.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning
         | 
         | If you want to break this you have to know the person and ask
         | key questions afterwards. Their distortion field is held
         | together by beliefs and principles, not empirical analysis.
         | 
         | For instance, for my father, the question "how is this treating
         | people responsibly? How can we expect the behavior of those
         | guards to be held accountable?" would pierce this ... but
         | really you have to know how the person doing motivated
         | reasoning thinks.
        
           | why-o-why wrote:
           | So does this apply to every single person all the time?
        
             | kristopolous wrote:
             | Nothing does.
             | 
             | It's about successful communication of authorial intent.
             | 
             | 60 Minutes is not trying to say "Justice Served!" and shake
             | pom-poms here. But, someone could read it that way, and it
             | would be unintended.
        
           | mlrtime wrote:
           | His Dad will be smart enough to know these questions are
           | trying to set him up. Maybe try having a real conversation
           | and not trying to change his mind. After all, there is a good
           | chance you will be that Dad in the future (no matter how hard
           | you tell yourself you won't be). Tell me how I now.
        
             | kristopolous wrote:
             | I'm almost 50. I won't be. I have friends who are becoming
             | grandparents now, still no interest.
             | 
             | I have half a century of talking with my father. If you
             | think this is my first strategy as opposed to one that took
             | years of therapy and personal struggle, I dunno what to
             | tell you.
             | 
             | There's a wide body of social and psychological research on
             | this stuff including multiple university departments
             | (communication, psychology, sociology, management,
             | teaching, etc) because "simply talking to people" doesn't
             | actually work.
        
               | why-o-why wrote:
               | Thanks kristopolous. We have a very similar story (I'm a
               | few years older). I think I'm at the "I've given up
               | point" because his glee at others' suffering is just too
               | painful to even address. So: he get's hellos at holidays
               | and that's it.
        
             | cafard wrote:
             | Real conversations cannot involve one or more persons
             | trying to change another's mind?
        
         | lostlogin wrote:
         | I wasn't aware that CBS's Ellison is Oracle Ellison's son.
         | 
         | TIL
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ellison
        
       | nutjob2 wrote:
       | The oligarchy is in full effect. This is exactly how it works, ie
       | you scratch my back I scratch yours. Ellison kills this CBS
       | report, he gets approval on buying WBS, or more to the point
       | NetFlix doesn't. Same with Musk, Middle East dictators and all
       | the others lining up for favors from Trump. Also he and his
       | family is enriched in various ways by all the pardons he hands
       | out.
       | 
       | It's nauseating, but this is where Republicans live these days.
       | The midterms can't come soon enough.
        
       | ordinaryradical wrote:
       | Corruption is not merely something someone in power enacts in
       | their choices; it is a rot that eats out the society from the
       | inside.
       | 
       | As individuals realize that nakedly appeasing the autocrat wins
       | favor, they voluntarily corrupt themselves and others in hopes of
       | advantage.
       | 
       | More and more of the society enters the grip of this force and
       | weakens until the truly valuable things--its resources, minds,
       | institutions--are annihilated, stolen, and displaced by a
       | hierarchy of criminals or warlords. This is how nations sink.
       | It's the story of many in Africa, South America, Russia--and now
       | it is our own.
        
         | frumplestlatz wrote:
         | If you had a corrupt state like that, one in which the
         | bureaucracy, the media, and the institutions were controlled by
         | a uniparty, what would it look like if they were challenged?
         | 
         | How thoroughly would they unite to destroy that challenger?
         | Would you perhaps see apocalyptic and apoplectic stories
         | published across the media, in sync with the press conferences
         | of the political class?
         | 
         | Would they try to get people like you riled up and angry, and
         | saying exactly the kind of things you're saying here?
        
           | ordinaryradical wrote:
           | An all-powerful uniparty can do things like this:
           | - deport or jail you without due process         - ignore the
           | law in service of its own ends         - punish its enemies,
           | pardon its allies         - ignore the constitution         -
           | install loyalists in centers of power, oust dissenters
           | - suppress media which challenges its hold on power         -
           | commit crimes         - enrich its friends         - declare
           | its "plenary authority" to do the above
           | 
           | Brother, you are looking for the deep state under every rock
           | and it is out in the sunshine, smiling at you.
        
             | m4rtink wrote:
             | Yeah, just look at Hungary or Slovakia how that can happen.
        
           | bulbar wrote:
           | They would start to pardon criminals that conducted acts they
           | like and fire the people that investigated those crimes. They
           | would try to bring everybody to jail that oppose or upset
           | them or have opposed them.
           | 
           | They win when challengers become too rare because others are
           | afraid of the consequences to oppose.
           | 
           | What the Trump administration did regarding the Capitol
           | storming on January 6th tells you everything you need to
           | know. They strive for power and nothing else.
        
           | Alive-in-2025 wrote:
           | I believe you're trying to say the real oppressors were
           | liberals and ideas like people having civil rights that were
           | enforced were somehow oppressing others. Look at what
           | Republicans are doing in reality right now that they're in
           | charge in the us, they're doing all the things that you're
           | worried about.
        
         | anal_reactor wrote:
         | > As individuals realize that nakedly appeasing the autocrat
         | wins favor, they voluntarily corrupt themselves and others in
         | hopes of advantage.
         | 
         | When I pointed out that this is the work culture in most
         | American corporations, I was told that is a feature, not a bug,
         | because US government and most big tech at the time preached
         | values in line with average white middle-class Californian. Now
         | that this is no longer the case, the mindset of appeasing the
         | leader is suddenly a problem.
         | 
         | The whole situation was preventable, but everyone was too high
         | on ZIRP to notice. We could've used the good times to establish
         | good cultural values, but we didn't. Freedom of speech and
         | other foundations of democracy were already rotting long ago
         | but nobody cared. We could've used the good times to allow
         | better dialogue between different political fractions, but we
         | didn't. At some point democrats honestly believed they would
         | simply never lose power again, making it seem pointless to talk
         | to republicans. Now that the money dried out, people suddenly
         | start asking questions and talking about "muh big values".
         | 
         | I have zero empathy.
        
           | benterix wrote:
           | > When I pointed out that this is the work culture in most
           | American corporations, I was told that is a feature, not a
           | bug, because US government and most big tech at the time
           | preached values in line with average white middle-class
           | Californian.
           | 
           | It is a bit analogous to many of us worrying about Google and
           | others getting so much power. The arguments were quickly
           | dismissed with: "But these folks are responsible, don't be
           | paranoid". The problem with this kind of thinking is, once
           | the power balance changes, you find yourself in a situation
           | you'd never put yourself now. You cannot make Google unlearn
           | what they know about you. You cannot unsend the photos you
           | privately shared on Messenger and force Meta to untrain their
           | facial recognition models. Now all these things you
           | considered a convenience given to you for free can be used
           | against you, and the extend and direction of the abuse is
           | correlated with who is in power.
        
           | hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
           | I'm curious which specific problematic values do you think
           | were being adhered to and preached in the past, that was
           | comparable to what's happening in CECOT, and wasn't opposed?
        
             | the_gastropod wrote:
             | "Both sides!" guys should be taken about as seriously as
             | Homer Simpson. Their political commentary is completely
             | vibes based. No basis in reality.
        
             | anal_reactor wrote:
             | It's not that it's comparable, but it's rather direct
             | evolution of. US social contract has a huge grey area where
             | you can get royally screwed even though you've done nothing
             | illegal. For example, in most places in the US employees
             | can be fired for expressing political opinions, and most
             | people have their entire lifehoods tied to their employers.
             | As in, saying "I think there are two genders"* was
             | literally a fireable offense in many companies, and you'd
             | be left without income, without medical insurance. So
             | naturally there were a lot of topics that people simply
             | chose not to talk about, effectively voiding freedom of
             | speech unless you're so rich you don't need a job.
             | 
             | This issue was not addressed when democrats were in power.
             | They could've passed laws that protect freedom of speech,
             | but they chose not to, because it allowed them to get rid
             | of problematic republicans.
             | 
             | Now that the machine has turned against democrats and
             | you're not allowed to talk about certain topics important
             | to democrats like climate change or CECOT, it's somehow a
             | big fucking problem.
             | 
             | * I purposefully chose a statement that is highly
             | controversial. It would be really cool if we could have
             | social dialogue about controversial things in order to
             | reach a widespread social consensus, instead of having
             | extremist opinions boil in people.
        
               | the_gastropod wrote:
               | If I'm understanding your example correctly, these types
               | of firings are possible thanks to Right-to-work laws.
               | Which political party introduced and continues to
               | advocate for Right-to-work? Which has generally opposed
               | Right-to-work and has supported workers unions, which
               | would protect workers from arbitrary firings?
        
               | pseudalopex wrote:
               | You meant at will employment? So called right to work
               | laws are about relations of unions and non members.
        
         | throwway262515 wrote:
         | Expanded and unbleakified:
         | 
         | Corruption is not just the immoral acts of an elite few; it is
         | a parasite that hollows out society from within.
         | 
         | When the mainstream realizes that sycophancy toward the
         | autocrat is rewarded, some willingly sacrifice their principles
         | for short-term benefits, burrowing into the system like worms
         | in an apple.
         | 
         | Yet, parasites cannot survive without a compliant host. To kill
         | the infestation, we must cut off the food source: our
         | passiveness. This begins with everyday refusals--denying the
         | petty bribe, rejecting the convenient lie, and defending the
         | honest colleague. By maintaining high ethical standards in our
         | own spheres of influence, we starve the corrupt hierarchy of
         | the dead matter it needs to grow.
         | 
         | We must also make the terrain uninhabitable for them. These
         | organisms thrive in the dark, protected by silence. Therefore,
         | we must actively expose them: documenting abuses, funding media
         | samaritans, and organizing locally to demand transparency. When
         | integrity becomes the standard again, the host becomes hostile
         | to the parasite, isolating the invaders rather than letting
         | them multiply.
         | 
         | Without this resistance however, the society weakens until its
         | greatest assets--its resources, minds, and institutions--are
         | cannibalized by a regime of criminals. This is how nations
         | collapse. We have seen this story in Africa, South America, and
         | Russia. This plague is now upon us. But history is not destiny.
         | We possess the power to stop it. We only need the will to use
         | it.
        
           | hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
           | Well said.
           | 
           | America isn't used to corruption. It hasn't seen societal
           | level rot that corruption can bring since at least WW2.
           | 
           | It's a deeply damaging phenomenon.
        
       | r721 wrote:
       | >Here is Sharyn Alfonsi's email to her '60 Minutes' colleagues in
       | full:
       | 
       | https://x.com/grynbaum/status/2002943084322287815
        
         | r721 wrote:
         | Some more details:
         | 
         | https://x.com/grynbaum/status/2003109023705387478
         | 
         | https://x.com/grynbaum/status/2003209942057255073
        
           | xenophonf wrote:
           | For those of us without Twitter accounts:
           | 
           | https://xcancel.com/grynbaum/status/2002943084322287815
           | 
           | https://xcancel.com/grynbaum/status/2003109023705387478
           | 
           | https://xcancel.com/grynbaum/status/2003209942057255073
        
       | mrjay42 wrote:
       | Why all those articles on HN are "flagged"? And by WHOM?
       | 
       | I've been watching this 60min piece, and there's nothing wrong
       | with is. It's journalism well done.
       | 
       | Do Trumpist minions have their ways on HN?
        
         | krapp wrote:
         | It only takes a few flags to be effective and there are
         | definitely more than a few Trumpists on HN so theoretically
         | yes. Could also be the likely much larger contingent of people
         | who flag all "political" and "non-technical" content by
         | default.
         | 
         | Like it or not Hacker News has never been (and will never be) a
         | platform for free and open debate. It's designed around
         | aggressive curation for quality over quantity and that makes it
         | very easy to brigade by design.
        
           | UncleMeat wrote:
           | > Could also be the likely much larger contingent of people
           | who flag all "political" and "non-technical" content by
           | default.
           | 
           | It could, but that'd be odd. We've seen oodles of
           | structurally similar posts hang out on the front page
           | unflagged before. There are even past examples of major posts
           | _criticizing the journalistic integrity of 60 Minutes_. Only
           | once the material becomes critical of the regime does it
           | become flagged.
        
           | thomassmith65 wrote:
           | I upvoted the story itself, but the endless comments
           | discussing flags on HN are a bigger nuisance than the
           | occasional community-flagged story.
           | 
           | I am tempted to go over each such complaint on this page
           | (there must be a couple dozen so far) and reply _" Quiet,
           | please! People are reading."_
        
         | UltraSane wrote:
         | Marc Andreessen is a strong supporter of Trump.
        
           | skeeter2020 wrote:
           | Lets be more accurate: none of the powerful & rich are strong
           | supporters OF trump; they support him strongLY because of the
           | direct pay-offs they personally gain. I think it's important
           | to differentiate between the Andreessens and your core MAGA
           | supporter who I actually believe he is a god, because
           | strategies for defeating them are very different.
        
             | evan_ wrote:
             | > none of the powerful & rich are strong supporters OF
             | trump; they support him strongLY because of the direct pay-
             | offs they personally gain.
             | 
             | A distinction without a difference.
             | 
             | "I stabbed you in the back because I wanted to steal your
             | watch, not because I disliked you _personally_. "
        
             | UncleMeat wrote:
             | Nah, I genuinely believe that Andreessen believes much of
             | what Trump believes.
        
           | smileson2 wrote:
           | Shut up or they will send you there ( by mistake for a year
           | or two )
        
         | idiotsecant wrote:
         | There is a strong ideological lean on HN towards not
         | necessarily the trump ethos, but more toward the
         | technofeudalist ideal, which is currently broadly aligned with
         | trump on many issues. It's also trumpisim in a more
         | sophisticated hat, but it's adherents don't seem to think so.
        
           | estearum wrote:
           | It's even more craven and intellectually bankrupt than
           | Trumpism, which at least has the simple honesty of "say good
           | thing make good thing happen" and is broadly believed by
           | people too stupid to know better.
        
           | ikamm wrote:
           | Everyone here tries way too hard to emulate the Musks of the
           | world as if their political beliefs were the reason those
           | guys initially got so rich and successful.
        
           | prh8 wrote:
           | and unsurprisingly, this is getting downvoted, despite being
           | extremely accurate
        
           | mrguyorama wrote:
           | Don't forget the very right wing fake "free speech"
           | insistence, where speech you agree with is free and speech
           | that criticizes your failures is "An attack".
           | 
           | Or the huge cohort who insist that Joe Rogan talking to
           | another guy about how it's not that big a deal that the very
           | existence of gay people is yet again under attack is "Two
           | people having a calm debate of their difference in beliefs"
           | despite that not being true.
           | 
           | There are tons of people on HN that would have done better to
           | spend more time in English class learning about persuasive
           | writing and the pillars of rhetoric and media literacy and
           | all that "critical thinking" they claim school didn't teach
           | them and are currently angry when people rightly call out
           | their poorly supported arguments, and they don't actually
           | seem to know what an "argument" even is.
           | 
           | It's so frustrating their faux "debate" beliefs. It's worse
           | than a decade ago when they thought "debate" was screaming at
           | your ideological opponents a hundred outright false claims
           | that can't be countered in a reasonable time frame.
           | 
           | Nevermind that we HAD calm debate about most of this shit
           | decades ago. But these people only believe a "debate"
           | happened when their beliefs are validated. Otherwise it's
           | "canceling" that thing they still scream about despite doing
           | it all the time.
           | 
           | Also the idea that we should have "calm debate" about the
           | government sending you to another country's prison without
           | trial is insane when that was specifically one of the exact
           | reasons the founding fathers decided to start shooting people
           | over. Thomas Jefferson would not be calm in his rhetoric.
        
         | skeeter2020 wrote:
         | >> I've been watching this 60min piece, and there's nothing
         | wrong with is
         | 
         | It's not even that good of a story IMO; leading to full-on
         | Streisand effect when it's easier than ever to find things on
         | the interwebs, and double-impossible to suppress them. About
         | all this has done is prevented the 60 minutes demo from viewing
         | a story they would have immediately forgotten, and prompted a
         | far more dangerous to the status quo & resourceful segment to
         | go find & view a show they never watch.
        
         | spopejoy wrote:
         | It's almost assuredly paid actors, the kind who brigade every
         | single comment section no matter how piddly the outlet anytime
         | there's a peep of pro-Palestinian, pro-abortion or whatever the
         | culture-war generals are focusing their troops on.
         | 
         | Tbh HN does a _lot_ better dealing with this than pretty much
         | anywhere. Yes HN has the flagging feature so of course it will
         | get abused but as evidenced by this article sitting now at the
         | top of HN, it gets addressed by moderator intervention,
         | regularly.
        
           | evan_ wrote:
           | Why do you think "paid"? These people are acting on their
           | honestly-held ideological beliefs. Don't give them the out.
        
           | vkou wrote:
           | It's not paid actors.
           | 
           | It's partisan hacks who are somewhere on the spectrum between
           | full support of this barbarity, and finding all the other
           | shit that's being done useful enough to them to be worth
           | compromising their values.
           | 
           | The latter can be identified by 'Well I don't agree with
           | everything this administration does, but I will throw my full
           | support behind <one of the many wedges they are using to turn
           | this country into a corrupt single-party autocracy>.'
           | 
           | (They won't push you onto the tracks because they hate you,
           | they'll push you because it means they'll see a 0.7% drop in
           | their expected tax rate. They are in most ways, worse than
           | the former, because they can tell the difference between
           | right and wrong, and still carry water for the latter,
           | because they see personal benefit in it.)
        
       | UltraSane wrote:
       | This should NOT be flagged.
        
       | vdupras wrote:
       | This, and Larry Ellison buying all news outlets in America.
       | Things should be happening quickly enough so that it's obvious
       | where this is all going, right?
       | 
       | Whoever writes the next "Inglorious Basterds" should have a lot
       | of fun parodying Larry...
        
       | tl wrote:
       | I recommend everyone bookmark the archive.org link or download
       | via the magnet link since HN is disappearing these.
       | 
       | Also, any recommendations for a news site that doesn't suppress
       | news? Asking for a friend.
        
         | r721 wrote:
         | It looks like mods manually removed flags for this one (it was
         | flagged).
        
           | iLoveOncall wrote:
           | It's still already low on the front-page, when usually posts
           | with that amount of upvotes would stay at the top for
           | multiple days in a row.
        
         | bmacho wrote:
         | > Also, any recommendations for a news site that does suppress
         | news? Asking for a friend.
         | 
         | HN?
        
           | immibis wrote:
           | HN regularly suppresses news, including this news.
        
             | Alive-in-2025 wrote:
             | It doesn't feel like it's suppressing the news. Can you
             | give examples of suppression? I'd say hacker news is very
             | open to contrary ideas and disagreements.
        
               | array_key_first wrote:
               | If it's political, there's a good chance it gets flagged.
               | The problem is pretty much everything is political when
               | you have a government that sticks it's grubby little
               | fingers where it shouldn't.
        
               | kgwxd wrote:
               | From what I've seen, they let the important stuff stay.
               | just use reddit for the rest. i'd rather it be more
               | focused here.
        
               | immibis wrote:
               | Reddit is even worse at this.
        
               | mdhb wrote:
               | Have you actually ever browsed the secret "active" page
               | where you can see what people are actually voting for
               | without the mods putting their thumbs on the scale? It's
               | constantly filled with dead posts because someone said
               | something that was vaguely unflattering towards Israel,
               | venture capital, capitalism in general, the United States
               | or Apple. Literally happens dozens of times every single
               | day.
        
               | dang wrote:
               | It's hardly secret--it's on the /lists page which is
               | referenced in the footer of every page on HN.
               | 
               | It simply isn't the frontpage, for reasons that ought to
               | be obvious to anyone who has read
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. How you
               | guys turn this into sinister suppression continues to
               | escape me.
               | 
               | Edit: perhaps this will help:
               | 
               |  _HN is designed to downweight sensational-indignant
               | stories, internet dramas, and riler-uppers, for the
               | obvious reason that if we didn 't, then they would
               | dominate HN's frontpage like they dominate the rest of
               | the internet. Anyone who spends time here (or has read
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) knows
               | that this is not what the site is for. The vast majority
               | of HN readers like HN for just this reason. It is not
               | some arbitrary switch that we could just flip, if only we
               | would stop being censoriously sinister. It's essential to
               | the operation of the site._
               | 
               | (copied from
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46366656)
        
               | mdhb wrote:
               | The level of discrepancy between the rules as they are
               | written and how things work in reality is miles apart.
               | Every day.
               | 
               | Edit: since I can't reply because my account was
               | throttled for "posting too past" with a whopping 5
               | comments in the last 24 hours. Allow me to paste it
               | here...
               | 
               | It would probably help if I were to bring a bit more
               | specificity to my accusations here so we aren't just
               | talking about an abstract concept.
               | 
               | I'm making the claim:
               | 
               | 1. The active page (what people are actually engaging
               | with) and the front page (mods choice) regularly are
               | regularly out of sync not just in general but in very
               | specific and consistent ways.
               | 
               | 2. There is a small group of people who intentionally use
               | the flagging functionality in ways that have absolutely
               | zero to do with the rules as they are written. People are
               | incredibly open about this on a regular basis.
               | 
               | 3. We are left with a de facto situation where that same
               | small group are able to effectively censor what the rest
               | of the community is allowed to talk about.
               | 
               | 4. The moderation team seems to operate on the idea that
               | everyone is just acting in good faith despite evidence to
               | the contrary.
               | 
               | 5. When the discrepancies between the rules as they are
               | written and how things work in reality occur they are
               | very rarely corrected by the moderation team and I don't
               | know what other conclusion to draw other than you seem to
               | think that things are going great as they are and there's
               | no need to change anything.
               | 
               | 6. You say the active page isn't a secret but people are
               | always saying they had no idea it existed. Surely you
               | have some actual hard analytics numbers to show what
               | percentage of logged in users visit the active page? I
               | presume it's in the single digits percentage wise but I'm
               | open to being told otherwise.
        
               | dang wrote:
               | That's inevitable, because consistency is impossible: htt
               | ps://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que
               | .... How to interpret the inconsistency is a different
               | question, of course. I'm curious what you see that seems
               | most discrepant to you?
               | 
               | The closest I can give to an account of "how things work
               | in reality" is the 80,000+ moderation comments I've
               | posted over the last 10+ years: https://hn.algolia.com/?q
               | uery=by:dang&type=comment&dateRange.... You're free to
               | decide it's all lies, of course, but if you (or anyone)
               | randomly scroll back through that feed, I doubt you'll
               | find much that's miles apart from the rules as they are
               | written. As a matter of fact I'd be surprised if you
               | found _anything_ that could be fairly be described that
               | way, because trying to apply the rules as they are
               | written is a matter of integrity for us. If it weren 't,
               | we'd change the rules until it were.
        
               | mdhb wrote:
               | I had to rely inline above because of some questionable
               | circumstances but not here to debate that part at all.
               | 
               | But on the topic of this active page I do find it rather
               | poetic that in this exact thread we have people asking
               | what is this page they've never heard of.
               | 
               | When I call it secret, I don't mean it's necessarily a
               | coverup or something I mean that nobody seems to know
               | that it exists or that the front page doesn't actually
               | represent what people vote for.
        
               | dang wrote:
               | You might want to use a more accurate word like 'obscure'
               | in that case.
               | 
               | At this point I'm not sure what you're accusing us of,
               | other than HN not being a different kind of site. The
               | mandate of this place is clear
               | (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and
               | it simply isn't primarily to feature
               | political/sensational/outrage stories. That's the root
               | issue. The mechanics of voting, flagging, etc., are in
               | service of that.
               | 
               | From my perspective, you're arguing for a health food
               | store to devote its shelf space to chocolates and
               | pastries. Or, if you prefer the other way round, for a
               | confectionery to devote itself to turnips.
        
               | mdhb wrote:
               | I don't think that actually engages with literally any of
               | the points I've made but sure, I wasn't expecting
               | anything else. Like I said earlier it seems from where
               | you're sitting everything is going great and there's
               | nothing to answer for.
               | 
               | I was hoping however you could at least shine some light
               | on the active page question... what percentage of users
               | actually visit in on any given day? We can play semantic
               | games about secret vs obscure but it's not a debate about
               | semantics.
        
               | dang wrote:
               | If you knew how bad HN regularly makes me feel, you would
               | be attributing very different sentiments than those.
               | 
               | The point isn't that HN is perfect or even very good.
               | It's that your objections are ignoring what the site is
               | for. Improving the site means making it better fulfill
               | its mandate, but you're not arguing from that place at
               | all, and in fact are (implicitly) arguing that we rip out
               | that mandate and replace it with a different one.
               | 
               | I haven't looked up the number of users who visit the
               | /active page because I don't accept the premise of your
               | question. Of course fewer users look at it than the
               | frontpage; otherwise it would _be_ the frontpage. This is
               | just another variation of the mandate argument.
        
               | Alive-in-2025 wrote:
               | I had never really looked at the /lists page, which one
               | is the one that you were thinking is secret actives page,
               | best or probably active?
        
               | bmacho wrote:
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/active
        
         | chakintosh wrote:
         | Lemmy.zip
        
         | root_axis wrote:
         | > _Also, any recommendations for a news site that doesn 't
         | suppress news_
         | 
         | No such thing.
        
       | rubyfan wrote:
       | The timing of this might lead one to believe Paramount's hostile
       | takeover bid for Warner Brothers Discovery is a consideration in
       | their editorial decisions. They and their competitor (Netflix)
       | need regulatory approval for such a merger and the administration
       | has already inserted itself into the deal.
        
         | pavlov wrote:
         | It goes deeper. The Ellisons want to replace Murdoch as the
         | state media for Republican administrations.
        
           | smt88 wrote:
           | I'm sympathetic to this idea but Larry Ellison will likely be
           | dead in under 10 years and David Ellison has only ever been a
           | Democrat.
           | 
           | It seems more plausible that David Ellison will bend in
           | whatever direction the wind is blowing.
        
         | xoa wrote:
         | Hard to imagine that's the a core part of it, and pretty
         | naturally in America the clear ongoing and unprecedented (in
         | modern times anyway) corruption on that front is the focus. But
         | it probably doesn't hurt that she appears to just be a really
         | big fan of that particular dictator and torture prison
         | specifically. Earlier this year her site "the Free Press" was
         | all over them [0]:
         | 
         | >"The hottest campaign stop is this Salvadoran supermax: House
         | Republican Riley Moore went to the super maximum security
         | prison in El Salvador to take some photos in front of the
         | inmates. "I just toured the CECOT prison in El Salvador," he
         | writes, with pictures of him giving a thumbs-up, shirtless
         | inmates standing at attention behind him. Moore gave a double
         | thumbs-up in front of the men, densely packed in their cold
         | metal bunk. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem took the
         | same tour recently, posting a fun video in front of caged,
         | tatted men."
         | 
         | >"After Bukele left the White House, he thirstily tweeted, "I
         | miss you already, President T." Trump returned the favor,
         | learning to say MAGA in Spanish: "!America grande, otra vez!""
         | 
         | Etc. And she's been very positive on Bukele personally as well.
         | Might be multiple reasons she'd gleefully want to spike such a
         | story even if the commands of her owners take precedent.
         | 
         | Edit: whew, this one sure triggered the technofeudalists and
         | Baristans! From 3 to -3 for her own publication's and her
         | statements.
         | 
         | ----
         | 
         | 0: https://archive.md/dcPkJ
        
           | huhkerrf wrote:
           | I'm not sure how you can read that and think it is speaking
           | favorably about the prison.
           | 
           | Here are some parts you left out:
           | 
           | > The El Salvador supermax prison is becoming the new Ohio
           | Diner. It's the new Iowa State Fair. It's the new Jeffrey
           | Epstein jet: It's where every political leader needs to
           | visit, the place to see and be seen if you're ambitious and
           | in politics today.
           | 
           | > They agreed that there was nothing to be done about the
           | mistakenly deported Maryland man, now in Salvadoran custody.
           | Two leaders of two great countries simply cannot find that
           | one random wrongly deported man, and everyone should move
           | along (I'm assuming that means he's dead, right?).
        
       | kardianos wrote:
       | Bari Weiss had editorial comments that forced a delay. If you
       | want to read her comments, look for them:
       | 
       | https://x.com/thesimonetti/status/2003142908854313225
       | 
       | They seem reasonable. The person doing this 60 minute segment has
       | also pushed false stories in the past, which make her concern
       | more relevant.
        
         | runako wrote:
         | The arguments are nonsense. A summary is Weiss wants to make a
         | case for the administration, which already has the largest
         | platform in the world. If the administration wants to make a
         | case for itself, it has (and has had) ample time to do so. As
         | it stands, there is already a lengthy paper trail of arguments
         | the administration has made in court. These arguments should
         | take precedence over throwaway statements an admin rep might
         | make to a news program.
         | 
         | Briefly, on a couple of them:
         | 
         | - "We then say that only 8 of the 252 have been sentenced in
         | America for violent offenses. But what about charged?" In the
         | US, those people are known as "innocent," whether or not Weiss
         | likes that fact.
         | 
         | - Holding a story until the administration is willing to go on
         | record is exactly the same as giving the administration a veto
         | over a story. We would not have adversarial journalism under
         | these circumstances.
         | 
         | - "The admin has argued in court that detainees are due
         | "judicial review" --and we should explain this" These men were
         | sent for indefinite detention to a concentration camp outside
         | the US borders, and then the administration argued in court
         | that it could not affect any change in their status. This
         | argument from Weiss is transparently false.
        
         | skeeter2020 wrote:
         | Reasonable? They ALL boil down to "we need to get official
         | comments, rationale and explanations from the administration".
         | They refused to comment on the story, so you wait because if
         | they CHOOSE not to participate you don't get to publish? That's
         | never been how reporting works. Her comments about a lack of
         | detail regarding the criminal records & charges? The
         | administration is the party that refuses to share this! They
         | are not even forthcoming with WHO EXACTLY has been deported.
         | 
         | Bari Weiss bending over backwards to accomodate an
         | administration that has never shown any sort of honesty or
         | humanity is exactly why she was rewarded so handsomely. "They
         | seem reasonable" is not even remotely close, when comparing
         | "evidence-based truth" reporting with the president's "I speak
         | the truth".
        
         | afavour wrote:
         | They aren't reasonable.
         | 
         | If you wait for the administration to comment on a story before
         | you publish it you're effectively giving them the right to veto
         | it. You ask, give them a deadline. If they don't respond or say
         | no comment (as they did in this case) then you publish.
         | 
         | > The person doing this 60 minute segment has also pushed false
         | stories in the past
         | 
         | You're going to need to elaborate on that. If it were true why
         | wouldn't Weiss just fire them?
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | > The person doing this 60 minute segment has also pushed false
         | stories
         | 
         | [citation needed]
        
         | umanwizard wrote:
         | Bari Weiss is not a stupid person. She knows she can't just
         | openly say "I killed this because it's critical to Trump"; she
         | has to come up with some plausible fig leaf, which is what
         | you're posting here.
        
       | sans_souse wrote:
       | Direct Download link if anyone needs it is
       | https://archive.org/download/insidececot/60minutesCECOTsegme...
        
       | paulvnickerson wrote:
       | Here's why Bari Weiss delayed the story:
       | 
       | Hi all,
       | 
       | I'm writing with specific guidance on what I'd like for us to do
       | to advance the CECOT story. I know you'd all like to see this run
       | as soon as possible; I feel the same way. But if we run the piece
       | as is, we'd be doing our viewers a disservice.
       | 
       | Last month many outlets, most notably The New York Times, exposed
       | the horrific conditions at CECOT. Our story presents more of
       | these powerful testimonies--and putting those accounts into the
       | public record is valuable in and of itself. But if we're going to
       | run another story about a topic that has by now been much-covered
       | we need to advance it. Among the ways to do so: does anyone in
       | the administration or anyone prominent who defended the use of
       | the Alien Enemies Act now regret it in light of what these
       | Venezuelans endured at CECOT? That's a question I'd like to see
       | asked and answered.
       | 
       | - At present, we do not present the administration's argument for
       | why it sent 252 Venezuelans to CECOT. What we have is Karoline
       | Leavitt's soundbite claiming they are evildoers in America
       | (rapists, murderers, etc.). But isn't there much more to ask in
       | light of the torture that we are revealing? Tom Homan and Stephen
       | Miller don't tend to be shy. I realize we've emailed the DHS
       | spox, but we need to push much harder to get these principals on
       | the record.
       | 
       | - The data we present paints an incongruent picture. Of the 252
       | Venezuelans sent to CECOT, we say nearly half have no criminal
       | histories. In other words, more than half do have criminal
       | histories. We should spend a beat explaining this. We then say
       | that only 8 of the 252 have been sentenced in America for violent
       | offenses. But what about charged? My point is that we should
       | include as much as we can possibly know and understand about
       | these individuals.
       | 
       | - Secretary Noem's trip to CECOT. We report that she took
       | pictures and video there with MS-13 gang members, not TdA
       | members, with no comment from her or her staff about what her
       | goal on that trip was, or what she saw there, or if she had or
       | has concerns about the treatment of detainees like the ones in
       | our piece. I also think that the ensuing analysis from the
       | Berkeley students is strange. The pictures are alarming; we
       | should include them. But what does the analysis add?
       | 
       | - We need to do a better job of explaining the legal rationale by
       | which the administration detained and deported these 252
       | Venezuelans to CECOT. It's not as simple as Trump invoking the
       | Alien Enemies Act and being able to deport them immediately. And
       | that isn't the administration's argument. The admin has argued in
       | court that detainees are due "judicial review"--and we should
       | explain this, with a voice arguing that Trump is exceeding his
       | authority under the relevant statute, and another arguing that
       | he's operating within the bounds of his authority. There's a
       | genuine debate here. If we cut down Kristi Noem analysis we'd
       | have the time.
       | 
       | My general view here is that we do our viewers the best service
       | by presenting them with the full context they need to assess the
       | story. In other words, I believe we need to do more reporting
       | here.
       | 
       | I am eager and available to help. I tracked down cell numbers for
       | Homan and Miller and sent those along. Please let me know how I
       | can support you.
       | 
       | Yours,
       | 
       | Bari
        
         | estearum wrote:
         | TLDR:
         | 
         | Bari thinks the government should be able to quash any story it
         | wants by simply refusing to "present the administration's
         | argument."
        
           | stvltvs wrote:
           | Exactly. You give people a reasonable chance to comment, but
           | you can't let them veto your story if they decline. That
           | would be a naive way to be fair and balanced.
        
         | afavour wrote:
         | Here are the _excuses_ Bari Weiss gave to _bury_ the story.
         | 
         | The reporters reached out to the govt for comment. They chose
         | not to respond. If you insist on holding off publishing until
         | you have a comment you've just given the government the ability
         | to block the story by endlessly delaying comment.
         | 
         | More broadly the problem here is simply that Weiss has no
         | legitimate authority to make calls like this. She's never
         | worked as a reporter. The 60 Minutes staff have decades of
         | reporting experience. The only reason she has the job is
         | because a billionaire who is trying to curry favor with the
         | administration installed her there. That context hangs over
         | every decision she makes.
        
           | embedding-shape wrote:
           | > The reporters reached out to the govt for comment. They
           | chose not to respond.
           | 
           | According to the video itself (just finished watching it),
           | that's not true. US officials did respond, telling them to
           | ask El Salvador officials instead, so basically redirecting,
           | rather than "no response". If that's worse or not I guess is
           | left as an exercise to the reader.
        
         | evan_ wrote:
         | The whole thing is poorly-conceived and obviously false but I
         | just have to call this out-
         | 
         | > Of the 252 Venezuelans sent to CECOT, we say nearly half have
         | no criminal histories. In other words, more than half do have
         | criminal histories. We should spend a beat explaining this.
         | 
         | The story isn't that people found guilty of crimes went to
         | jail, the story is that half weren't even charged with crimes!
         | That's the whole point of the story! We should not be aiming
         | for a balanced diet of criminals and not-criminals in our
         | government-sponsored foreign death camps!
         | 
         | The fact that they exist at all is an affront to humanity, but
         | to say "it's OK because a slim majority _deserve_ it "- I just
         | don't know what to say.
         | 
         | > We then say that only 8 of the 252 have been sentenced in
         | America for violent offenses. But what about charged?
         | 
         | What about charged? What does charged with a crime have to do
         | with anything? Why bring that up at all? Do we send people to
         | prison because they were charged with a crime? Is Bari Weiss a
         | newborn baby who has never heard about the presumption of
         | innocence?
         | 
         | I feel sick.
        
           | deepsquirrelnet wrote:
           | It's not just that, it's that the administration _knew_ they
           | weren't guilty of any crimes and sent them to be tortured
           | anyway.
           | 
           | If you can stomach it, propublica has been covering stories
           | like this since the summer [1].
           | 
           | Meanwhile, the MS13 has been cutting sweetheart deals with
           | Bukele [2] and we have been releasing actual gang members for
           | the privilege of sending innocent people to the torture
           | facilities [3, 4], even in the face of reports of USAID being
           | diverted to the gang for a money-for-votes scheme for Bukele
           | [5].
           | 
           | [1]https://www.propublica.org/article/venezuelan-men-cecot-
           | inte...
           | 
           | [2]https://www.propublica.org/article/ambassador-ronald-
           | johnson...
           | 
           | [3]https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-
           | releases/ran...
           | 
           | [4]https://www.npr.org/2025/10/21/nx-s1-5580555/why-the-
           | state-d...
           | 
           | [5]https://www.propublica.org/article/bukele-trump-el-
           | salvador-...
        
             | tastyface wrote:
             | And Bukele joked about it on TV, even as he knew these
             | innocent men were being beaten, raped, and tortured.
        
           | p_j_w wrote:
           | Her own excuse is either a complete lie or betrays the fact
           | that she doesn't understand the story. I invite her
           | apologists here to choose which interpretation they prefer.
        
             | hluska wrote:
             | I'm into the full meal deal theory. Her own excuse is a
             | complete lie, she doesn't understand the story and somehow
             | doesn't even understand journalism. In this case, 60
             | Minutes asked the White House for comment and they refused.
             | If a party to a story can kill the story by not being
             | involved, that's not journalism it's PR.
        
               | vkou wrote:
               | People who don't understand the press don't get
               | handpicked to run the press by the billionaires who own
               | it.
               | 
               | She understands that she's full of shit, and she's paid
               | to be full of shit. The Ellisons aren't spending billions
               | of dollars on this because they want _you_ to be well-
               | informed.
        
           | mindslight wrote:
           | It's worth highlighting that continually driving focus onto a
           | few spectacular examples of criminal histories is exactly how
           | this regime has been justifying its actions.
        
           | qingcharles wrote:
           | We do unfortunately send people to long times in jail
           | (sometimes over a decade) before their cases come to trial in
           | the USA. And jails in the USA generally have vastly worse
           | conditions than prisons (as they are "short term"
           | facilities).
           | 
           | CECOT is a whole different beast altogether, though :(
        
             | michaelmrose wrote:
             | You have to waive your right to a speedy trial. You cannot
             | be held for years without trial
        
               | qingcharles wrote:
               | Sure, that's true. Let's say you file a motion, though.
               | Say the cops beat a false confession out of you. You file
               | a motion to suppress. Now you've stopped the speedy trial
               | clock for a year, maybe two, while the motion is
               | responded to, witnesses and discovery are sought,
               | hearings are had, etc. You're stuck in jail that whole
               | time.
        
               | throwforfeds wrote:
               | Yes, but it does happen a lot. The case of Kalief Browder
               | was one of the reasons for all the reforms around bail.
               | [1][2]
               | 
               | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalief_Browder
               | 
               | [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/29/nyregion/kalief-
               | browder-c...
        
               | AngryData wrote:
               | Just like in theory the cops can't steal your stuff. But
               | in reality there are more than enough ways around such
               | little restrictions unless you are backed up by an
               | expensive and powerful legal team.
        
               | SV_BubbleTime wrote:
               | Just fyi, this is from 2021, not could, but did, some up
               | until the day they were pardoned never had a trial.
               | 
               | https://www.newsweek.com/accused-capitol-rioters-could-
               | spend...
               | 
               | Or, does this not count for ideological reasons? There
               | are at least some people out there that may be consistent
               | despite tribalism, I suppose.
        
               | kagakuninja wrote:
               | I was a jurist on a murder trial. The defendant had spent
               | 1.5 years in jail awaiting his trial. Then went back to
               | jail after the hung jury did not deliver a verdict.
        
           | UncleMeat wrote:
           | Even the people who _were_ convicted of crimes don 't deserve
           | this. There's this sick belief in parts of society that
           | criminals (which becomes a permanent state of being) are
           | valid targets for unlimited suffering.
           | 
           | People should not be sent to torture camps where they have no
           | hope of every leaving for the rest of their lives for
           | committing crimes.
        
             | germandiago wrote:
             | I would ask you if you know the case El Salvador in enough
             | detail.
             | 
             | If Bukele had not reached power, innocents would still be
             | killed and dying in the streets.
             | 
             | They gangs were extorting business systematically, if you
             | sold outside of your place they would kill you. You had to
             | ask for permission to enter and leave your colonia to the
             | gangs.
             | 
             | If a gang pointed at your sister and said "at 18:00 at my
             | place" she'd better go or you do not know what would happen
             | next, including revenge to relatives. I mean, yes, raping,
             | and yes, killing.
             | 
             | None of these things I said are made up. There are lots of
             | cases.
             | 
             | It is very easy to talk in the abstract but there is a
             | reason why Bukele gets massively voted.
             | 
             | Nothing is perfect but before the exception state the gangs
             | killed almost 80 people in a weekend to show Bukele who
             | they were. Random innocent people.
             | 
             | No, El Salvador, unfortunately, did not have an option.
             | 
             | It will take one generation to make it a permanently safe
             | place at least. In 30 years almost 80,000 people were
             | killed in the streets.
             | 
             | It was a real horror. That is why Salvadoreans support
             | Bukele. I think it os easy to complain from far but one
             | must be there to really understand it.
        
               | unethical_ban wrote:
               | I understand your argument, but the problem with Bukele
               | is that he is a bad human being, too. A gang leader with
               | slightly less proclivity for torture and rape than the
               | other gangs.
               | 
               | He knows that he has many innocent people locked up in
               | those jails. He knows that his deal with Trump is immoral
               | and unnecessary for the safety of El Salvador, but does
               | it anyway. His social media savvy relishes in his
               | authoritarianism, rather than explains it.
               | 
               | Unfortunately, the dire situation you describe is how
               | Authoritarians gain power: desperate populations
               | struggling for multiple years with widespread societal
               | problems that government has seemed too inept or corrupt
               | to fix. 1930s Germany, 2020s Trump, El Salvador.
        
               | kacesensitive wrote:
               | bringing down the murder rate doesn't excuse the torture
               | of innocent people (or anyone for that matter)
        
               | estearum wrote:
               | Sooooo... why are we sending people there?
        
               | UncleMeat wrote:
               | Maybe someday you'll have a chance to torture me to
               | death.
        
           | jama211 wrote:
           | Well said, absolutely ridiculous framing keeps happening and
           | you kept it grounded.
        
           | jimt1234 wrote:
           | > The fact that they exist at all is an affront to humanity,
           | but to say "it's OK because a slim majority deserve it"- I
           | just don't know what to say.
           | 
           | I think you don't understand MAGA mentality. Honestly, that's
           | probably a good thing, but understanding MAGA would help
           | understanding this whole situation.
        
             | evan_ wrote:
             | That's why I don't know what to say.
        
         | kenjackson wrote:
         | This is an embarrassing response.
         | 
         | You don't hold a story because you want to push the government
         | harder to respond, especially when you have the executive's
         | official spokesperson giving a reason on the record already.
         | 
         | And what does she mean that we should spend a beat explaining
         | that half do have criminal histories? She wants them to give a
         | cookie for that? And why is being charged relevant? You don't
         | send someone to prison for life for being charged.
         | 
         | Lastly she misstates the administrations legal justification
         | for deportation. She doesn't appear to be an unbiased actor
         | here.
         | 
         | The fact she sent that out publicly is a good indication of how
         | prejudiced she will be with editorial content.
         | 
         | You had a good run 60 Minutes.
        
           | FireBeyond wrote:
           | > And why is being charged relevant? You don't send someone
           | to prison for life for being charged.
           | 
           | Yup. I was charged with a felony of which I was materially
           | innocent.
           | 
           | But this is the right's spin on things, the "well even if you
           | weren't found guilty, there was enough of an issue to arrest
           | you and charge you".
           | 
           | I was watching a Zoom meeting of one of our local Superior
           | Court hearings - was a motion to revoke or modify bail
           | conditions.
           | 
           | The Judge actually rebuked the prosecutor, who had tried to
           | explain why the motion should go their way. "Blah blah, in
           | addition, the defendant has shown no signs of remorse or
           | regret for the situation..."
           | 
           | Judge: "I'm going to stop you there. The defendant pled not
           | guilty and at this moment no verdict has been determined. In
           | the eyes of the law and this court, they have zero obligation
           | or requirement to show remorse or regret for their _alleged_
           | actions. "
        
         | fumeux_fume wrote:
         | Bari wisely points out that if the deportees are being
         | tortured, then there must be a secretly good reason why if they
         | dig a little deeper. Suggests asking Stephen Miller.
        
         | unethical_ban wrote:
         | Thanks for posting.
         | 
         | For those not familiar: there were five screenings in the prior
         | week that journalists attended to discuss it. She was aware of
         | those and did not attend.
         | 
         | When she did look at it, her feedback was minor, and they made
         | adjustments.
         | 
         | Then she killed it a day after her delayed feedback, on the
         | weekend it was to air.
         | 
         | That context, combined with the response above, is telling.
         | 
         | She is at absolute best, entirely unfit and amateur for this
         | role combined with dangerous arrogance.
         | 
         | More likely, she is the malevolent puppet of a billionaire ally
         | of the current corrupt administration.
        
         | qingcharles wrote:
         | Having watched the documentary yesterday, the questions Bari
         | raises are suitable for a follow-up. There is nothing wrong
         | with the piece as it stands.
        
         | saubeidl wrote:
         | See also: _Gleichschaltung_.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung
        
         | UniverseHacker wrote:
         | This seems dishonest, she couldn't possibly think the
         | administration is going to share more useful information here,
         | and if they did it would have no value. These people were
         | illegally sent to life in prison at a brutal torture camp with
         | no charges or trial, at the expense of US taxpayers. There is
         | no possible excuse or rationale that would make it anything but
         | extremely illegal and unethical, and a betrayal of all of the
         | values our country purports to stand for. It doesn't matter
         | what crimes someone is accused of or not.
        
         | sgnelson wrote:
         | A CYA letter full of illogical rationalization.
        
         | opello wrote:
         | > The pictures are alarming; we should include them. But what
         | does the analysis add?
         | 
         | The analysis shows another way in which the government is
         | trying to be secretive about how it's treating people that were
         | within its borders and subject to its laws and protections. I
         | can only hope someone pointed this out because the question
         | suggests a baffling level of ignorance despite the message
         | overall sounding like some reasonable feedback on the story,
         | despite coming far too late in the process to be considered
         | reasonable.
        
         | wildzzz wrote:
         | Basically saying that because the administration isn't
         | cooperating with judicial reviews or even bothering to comment
         | (let alone display a difference in opinions), the story should
         | be shelved. So as long as the government is united in its
         | desire to commit horrible acts and stall justice, I guess we
         | shouldn't bother reporting them? Not sure where the logic is
         | there. And I guess since it's possible some bad apples exist,
         | then we should just take the word of the government that
         | everyone there is a gang member? I wouldn't ever call 60
         | Minutes cutting edge journalism, it's quality for sure but they
         | are never the first on the scene. Who cares if other media
         | companies have covered CECOT? 60 Minutes got first hand
         | interviews with detainees that have good backgrounds. That's
         | important, it lets viewers empathize with "good" immigrants
         | just trying to create a better life for their families. This
         | letter is weak.
        
           | embedding-shape wrote:
           | > Basically saying that because the administration isn't
           | cooperating with judicial reviews or even bothering to
           | comment (let alone display a difference in opinions), the
           | story should be shelved.
           | 
           | Which is ironic, considering the actual video that Canadian
           | broadcasters manage to send, it ends with basically "We
           | requested a comment from US officials, but they referred us
           | to speak with El Salvador instead", so even the finish video
           | that got broadcast, acknowledges this basic fact that you
           | need to carry on even if both sides don't want to be
           | interviewed on camera.
        
         | jimt1234 wrote:
         | Honestly, the argument that CBS buried the piece to protect
         | Trump is difficult to accept because, well, watching brown
         | people being treated like shit or even tortured is MAGA porn.
         | Innocence or guilt is meaningless - Dear Leader said they're
         | all enemies!
         | 
         | All the MAGAs I know on Facebook are posting about how the
         | video is great ("It's about time someone does something!"), so
         | I would think Trump would _want_ the piece to air.
        
         | ajross wrote:
         | That explanation is days late, though. It's attested that she
         | didn't even take a call from the episode producer before
         | killing it. I mean, sure, if you put a bunch of people in a
         | room and ask them to retcon a reasonable-sounding explanation
         | for why you did something embarassing, you can do it! The world
         | is a complicated place.
         | 
         | It's _abundantly_ clear why she spiked it. I know it. You know
         | it. We all know it. She was brought in as a clearly partisan
         | voice to put exactly this finger on exactly these levers at
         | CBS. We all saw it when she was hired and we all warned about
         | this. And she did.
         | 
         | I mean, why bother stenographising the excuse? No one is
         | fooled. "Partisan hack does partisan hackery" is like the least
         | surprising line in this story.
        
         | reubenswartz wrote:
         | > Here's why Bari Weiss delayed the story:
         | 
         | That is not accurate. It's her excuse for spiking the story.
        
         | SilverElfin wrote:
         | This isn't the real "why". Holding the release back is a
         | political decision. Why hold the story specially? Why not just
         | issue any corrections later? It's already gone through the same
         | approval process other stories would. The choice to do
         | something different here and treat Trump-damaging stories
         | differently is by definition, biased.
         | 
         | To me, Bari's response is a manufactured cover up. I've
         | followed Bari for years and seen the progression from someone
         | who was a balanced moderate to someone who is slowly developing
         | a strong bias and letting the mask off a little bit at a time.
         | The recent Turning Point townhall was the first big revelation
         | of her bias to the public. But as someone who subscribed to her
         | for years, I've seen the progression over time. And the
         | language in here feels less like her usual journalism and more
         | like something carefully put together to deflect.
         | 
         | As for the actual reason - here is what was shared by
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Stelter
         | 
         | https://x.com/brianstelter/status/2002943384499925159
        
       | pwthornton wrote:
       | Fascinating how this got leaked. A TV station in Canada
       | accidentally ran the original episode version, implying that this
       | was pulled super late and the episode was completely in the can.
        
         | stvltvs wrote:
         | Was it an accident?
        
           | dripdry45 wrote:
           | Narrator: It wasn't
        
           | embedding-shape wrote:
           | Probably as accidental as the people doing the censorship of
           | the latest Epstein files released today that had "accidents"
           | about how they censured stuff.
        
         | Alive-in-2025 wrote:
         | It was completely finished. There's an article out today that
         | says the main reporter on the story complained that the censor
         | Bari Weiss had not bothered to appear at the previous five
         | earlier screenings and reviews by the editorial team.
        
       | czottmann wrote:
       | Here's the magnet URL to the torrent, can't hurt:
       | magnet:?xt=urn:btih:734abc77f48d11c78543c52004b6f57db71d6d92&dn=6
       | 0minutes-cecotsegment&xl=1483256352&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.o
       | rg%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fann
       | ounce&ws=http://ia601703.us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=http://ia801
       | 703.us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=https://archive.org/download/
        
       | anonym29 wrote:
       | I believe information wants to be free, and should be free, even
       | when I don't unanimously agree with the information, so I will
       | start by re-sharing the torrent magnet link for the video, which
       | I am also seeding right now, and will continue to do so until at
       | least a full month passes with zero activity:                 mag
       | net:?xt=urn:btih:734abc77f48d11c78543c52004b6f57db71d6d92&dn=60mi
       | nutes-cecotsegment&xl=1483256352&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt1.archive.org%
       | 3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbt2.archive.org%3A6969%2Fannoun
       | ce&ws=http://ia601703.us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=http://ia801703
       | .us.archive.org/32/items/&ws=https://archive.org/download/
       | 
       | That said, there seems to be lots of conspiracy-adjacent talk in
       | here. Has anyone considered the impact of the previous Trump
       | lawsuit against CBS over the Kamala Harris edits, or the Trump-
       | BBC lawsuit, whereby CBS made a business risk decision to avoid a
       | story that might have some individual aspects of questionable
       | factual accuracy that could come back to bite CBS in a courtroom,
       | like how BBC's selective edits of Trump came back to bite them?
       | Paramount/CBS settled Trump's lawsuit over the Kamala Harris "60
       | Minutes" edit for $16 million in July. BBC is getting sued for
       | $10 billion. It's not economically irrational for an organization
       | that has already settled lawsuits for selective presentation of
       | political information in the past to be more worried about $10b
       | lawsuits than $16m lawsuits.
        
         | Alive-in-2025 wrote:
         | Resisting these economic threats, these lawsuits, is something
         | that major media needs to do, otherwise they just get
         | compromised step by step by the wealthy oligarchs.
        
       | kenjackson wrote:
       | Ironically, this might end up being more widely watched now
       | (Streisand). I've seen multiple people on my Facebook link to
       | different sources hosting the video. People who never would've
       | heard about the story are now watching it through the lens of
       | Trump and CBS trying to kill the story.
        
         | cmxch wrote:
         | But who will believe it? Or just mass report it off the
         | platform?
        
         | burkaman wrote:
         | I doubt it, around ten million people watch 60 minutes live
         | every week. Maybe that many will hear about the cancellation,
         | but I don't think most will then seek out the full segment
         | online, even if it's easy to find.
        
         | _moof wrote:
         | I didn't even know 60 Minutes is still on the air, but you
         | better believe I watched the shit out of this segment.
        
       | _3u10 wrote:
       | It's saved so over 15,000 lives and protected the human rights of
       | millions of Salvadorans. Truly a great accomplishment.
       | 
       | I'm excited to see what positive coverage CBS has of this great
       | development in human rights in El Salvador.
        
         | manuelmoreale wrote:
         | Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5:
         | 
         | No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or
         | degrading treatment or punishment.
        
         | FridayoLeary wrote:
         | Don't expect anyone to care about that angle. Let them virtue
         | signal like somehow human right concerns of violent criminals
         | is more important then the safety of the entire population of
         | el salvador. Safely insulated from the consequences of their
         | misplaced humanity of course. To be clear i saw a documentary
         | of CECOT and it looks terribly oppressive, but i see no
         | evidence of human rights abuses, even though most of the
         | inmates there have forfeited theirs through their actions imo.
        
           | manuelmoreale wrote:
           | How about caring for both? How about that as an idea? It's
           | impossible for you to accept that you can arrest and jail all
           | those people to protect the lives of regular citizens but
           | also not torture them while they are in jail?
        
           | doganugurlu wrote:
           | Sigh... there is no such thing as forfeiting your human
           | rights by committing a crime. You only forfeit your freedom
           | temporarily.
           | 
           | And why mention that inmates have forfeited their human
           | rights if you see no evidence of abuse? Weird thing to pre-
           | argue.
        
       | gmd63 wrote:
       | Larry Ellison is using his bags to purchase lies and silence.
       | 
       | No economy can be in true equilibrium when the consumers send
       | profits to be spent in unforeseen and unrelated ways like this.
       | Every purchase carries potentially immense future costs that are
       | almost completely opaque.
       | 
       | Free market maximalists need to confront this fact before praying
       | at the altar of complete deregulation, and every consumer should
       | pay more attention to who they are buying from.
        
         | jaredklewis wrote:
         | Sorry what regulation in particular are you thinking about
         | here? There's no logical anti-trust angle I can think of.
         | 
         | I mean of course I think the outcome here is bad, but I'm
         | struggling to think of a kind of regulation that could have
         | prevented it that isn't completely insane.
         | 
         | Edit: Listen everyone, it sucks, but there's no "one weird
         | trick" where you can have a congress, judiciary, and executive
         | branch dominated by Republicans, that then governs like
         | Democrats. This isn't a "regulation" problem. It's a "roughly
         | half the country wanted this" problem. Adding more regulations
         | is not going to suddenly make the FTC act right; we have
         | thousands of regulations already on the books and if they
         | wanted to do something, they could.
        
           | tantalor wrote:
           | In July 2025, the Ellisons bought CBS (Paramount) through
           | Skydance. This was approved by Trump's FTC.
           | 
           | The FTC is responsible for enforcing regulations that would
           | prevent mergers that negatively impact the quality of
           | services and innovation. They aren't doing their job.
        
             | vunderba wrote:
             | Agreed. Let's also not forget that a large part of the
             | reason that the Skydance/Paramount merger likely went
             | through in the first place was because Paramount paid off
             | Trump to the tune of 16 million USD by settling a lawsuit
             | in which he alleged deliberate deception during his Kamala
             | Harris interview on 60 Minutes.
             | 
             | https://www.npr.org/2025/07/02/nx-s1-5290171/trump-
             | lawsuit-p...
        
             | jaredklewis wrote:
             | What existing regulation are you accusing the FTC of not
             | enforcing? Is it illegal for a rich person to buy a
             | company? It's not like he's cornering TV news or something.
             | He's a minority player by any measurement (revenue,
             | viewers, etc..).
             | 
             | Not a fan of Trump, Ellison, or obviously this expose being
             | buried, but I am just trying to understand what the FTC did
             | wrong.
             | 
             | > The FTC is responsible for enforcing regulations that
             | would prevent mergers that negatively impact the quality of
             | services and innovation.
             | 
             | I don't think this is the best summary of either the FTC's
             | mandate from congress nor the antitrust laws in the US.
             | 
             | But whatever, it just seems like what you want is not more
             | regulation (Trump is adding lots of regulation on solar and
             | wind, that's good right?), but different regulators.
             | 
             | It sucks, but there's no "one weird trick" where you can
             | have a congress, judiciary, and executive branch dominated
             | by Republicans, that then makes them governs like
             | Democrats. This isn't a "regulation" problem. It's a
             | "roughly half the country wanted this" problem.
        
               | tantalor wrote:
               | > I don't think this is the best summary of either the
               | FTC's mandate from congress nor the antitrust laws in the
               | US.
               | 
               | Okay well I basically copy/pasted from ftc.gov:
               | 
               |  _The FTC's Bureau of Competition enforces the nation 's
               | antitrust laws, which form the foundation of our free
               | market economy. The antitrust laws promote the interests
               | of consumers; they support unfettered markets and result
               | in lower prices and more choices._
               | 
               | https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/bureaus-offices/bureau-
               | competi...
               | 
               |  _The Bureau of Competition is committed to preventing
               | mergers and acquisitions that are likely to reduce
               | competition and lead to higher prices, lower quality
               | goods or services, or less innovation_
               | 
               | https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/merger-review
        
             | burningChrome wrote:
             | Were you saying the same thing in 2014 and 2015 too?
             | 
             |  _According to data from Thomson Reuters, 2015 is set to be
             | the biggest year ever (once the planned deals close) in
             | worldwide dealmaking, with $4.7 trillion in announced
             | mergers and acquisitions--up 42 percent from 2014, and
             | beating the previous record of $4.4 trillion in 2007._
             | 
             |  _The year stands out, not just for the total value of the
             | deals but for the number of so-called mega-deals, which
             | refers to any deal that exceeds $5 billion. Just in the
             | last three months, notable mega-deals include AB Inbev's
             | acquisition of SABMiller, creating a $104 billion beverage
             | company; Pfizer and Allergan's announced a $160 billion
             | merger; and the chemical companies DuPont and Dow Chemical
             | Company's plans to unite as a $130 billion company. Thomson
             | Reuters counted 137 mega-deals last year, which accounted
             | for 52 percent of the year's overall M &A value._
        
               | tantalor wrote:
               | whataboutism
        
           | maxerickson wrote:
           | The whole point of granting limited liability is that it
           | enables things that benefit society.
           | 
           | So if something doesn't benefit society, don't extend that
           | grant to it.
        
           | ajross wrote:
           | Your prior seems to be that the Trump administration is
           | operating in good faith and that they would naturally be
           | predisposed to allow the merger, being free market
           | republicans and all.
           | 
           | That's not the accusation at hand. The contention is that the
           | Trump administration is _threatening to block the merger_
           | (corruptly, in opposition to their republican proclivities)
           | unless the news arm of the merged company is operated in a
           | partisan way.
           | 
           | And the evidence for that is that Ellison walked in, threw
           | out CBS News's pre-existing leadership, and brought in a
           | reasonably-well-known-but-still-not-celebrity-enough-to-be-
           | independent partisan republican voice to run it. And now that
           | she's there, _she 's clearly operating the news room in a
           | partisan way_.
           | 
           | Seems like a pretty convincing theory to me.
        
         | api wrote:
         | What's free market about total state regulatory capture,
         | calling the President when your bids get rejected, or setting
         | up wars and domestic police actions to enrich yourself with
         | contracts using taxpayer funds?
         | 
         | There are legitimate criticisms of a pure free market, but this
         | is "state capitalism" not a free market.
         | 
         | The Trump administration is absolutely not pro free market.
         | They're putting fingers on the scale all over the place, taking
         | Federal positions in private companies, taking literal bribes
         | for regulatory favors, influencing the selection of executives
         | and board members, and using the power of the state to attack
         | privately owned companies for platforming speech they don't
         | like (like this 60 Minutes segment, made by a private company).
         | Trump/MAGA looks a lot more like the CCP than anything else.
         | 
         | Of course if you pay attention to the discourse, MAGA and
         | national conservatism are an explicit repudiation of
         | Reagan/Clinton "neoliberalism" and "libertarian conservatism."
         | They explicitly support a large administrative state that
         | centrally plans the economy and culture, just one they run and
         | use to push right wing and nationalist agendas.
         | 
         | I remember saying back during the Bush years: if the right is
         | forced to choose between liberty and cultural conservatism,
         | they will throw out liberty. The right only supports the
         | freedom to do what they think people should be doing. (Yes,
         | there are similar attitudes in some parts of the left too.
         | There are not many principled defenders of individual liberty.)
         | 
         | Edit: I'm really just arguing that we should call things what
         | they are. Calling MAGA's CCP-like state capitalism a free
         | market is like calling Bernie Sanders or Mamdani communism
         | (they're socialists, not communists, these are not the same) or
         | calling old school conservative republicans fascists. Words
         | mean things.
        
           | the_gastropod wrote:
           | I think you're missing the implied cause and effect here.
           | Lighthanded regulations allow for ridiculous amounts of
           | wealth to be acquired in the U.S. Larry Ellison, Elon Musk,
           | etc. are so unfathomably rich (and therefore powerful), they
           | can now trivially bend government to their will.
        
             | api wrote:
             | I don't entirely disagree, but also note that the _extreme_
             | wealth of both these guys is at least partly a result of
             | state spending not pure private market forces.
             | 
             | Oracle has always had a huge presence in government. Large
             | companies too, but Federal use has really helped keep them
             | afloat as open source and competing products that are far
             | cheaper have eaten their lunch.
             | 
             | For Musk the case is even more extreme. Tesla's early
             | growth was bankrolled by EV credits and carbon offsets,
             | which were state programs, and SpaceX is a result of both
             | Federal funding and direct R&D transfer from NASA to
             | SpaceX. The latter was mostly uncompensated. NASA just
             | handed over decades of publicly funded R&D.
             | 
             | These two would probably be rich without the state, but
             | would they be this rich?
             | 
             | The same was true back in the original Gilded Age. The
             | "robber barons" were built by railroad and other
             | infrastructure subsidies.
             | 
             | However I do agree that private wealth beyond a certain
             | point begins to pose a risk to democracy and the rule of
             | law. It's a major weakness in libertarian schemes that call
             | for a "separation of economy and state." That's a much,
             | much harder wall to maintain than separation of church and
             | state. Enough money can buy politicians and elections.
        
               | the_gastropod wrote:
               | Let's remember: Musk _bought_ Tesla. He was already
               | ridiculously wealthy in order to get himself into this
               | position of basically robbing the U.S. government.
        
               | api wrote:
               | This is true but he was nowhere near as wealthy as he is
               | now, not even close.
        
               | the_gastropod wrote:
               | Of course. That was also my point, as I think it is
               | yours. There is an event horizon after which an
               | individual can corrupt government and really accelerate
               | their wealth accumulation even faster.
        
               | raw_anon_1111 wrote:
               | As much as I don't like Musk and think Tesla is
               | overvalued meme stock and the cars suck compared to other
               | EVs (I have driven a lot of EVs during the year that we
               | went without a car on purpose - long story), SpaceX did
               | something that the government couldn't do - have a lot of
               | failures before it had a success. Politics wouldn't let
               | it happen.
        
             | hypeatei wrote:
             | Peel it back even more: how does any State not fall victim
             | to monied interests? This is usually handwaved away by
             | socalists in the sense that everything is handled by
             | "independent commissions" that can totally not be
             | corrupted.
             | 
             | The solution is really to keep the scope of government
             | small so that any corruption isn't detrimental to the
             | populace, and they can handle it in the next election.
        
               | ModernMech wrote:
               | That's not a solution, that just removes an opponent of
               | monied interests from the table entirely, it's exactly
               | what they want. The only thing these people want more
               | than a government they can capture is a government so
               | small they can replace it entirely.
        
               | dpark wrote:
               | > The solution is really to keep the scope of government
               | small
               | 
               | Of course. Politically active billionaires are always
               | famously lobbying for large government and more
               | regulations.
        
               | nielsbot wrote:
               | Small government leads to big capitalism which is its own
               | kind of tyranny. Our current problems are not because
               | government is too big.
               | 
               | Powerful regulation which answers to the people is the
               | answer.
        
               | _DeadFred_ wrote:
               | Small government goes against the original and deepest
               | Capitalist thinkers, who all pushed that strong
               | government oversight was a REQUIRED part of Capitalism to
               | keep it healthy and in balance.
        
               | the_gastropod wrote:
               | Which countries on the planet do you think are the least
               | corrupt? What does their system of government look like?
        
               | RajT88 wrote:
               | There's a lot of these lists, but it's interesting the
               | differences in who tops the list:
               | 
               | https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-
               | cor...
        
               | overfeed wrote:
               | > Peel it back even more: how does any State not fall
               | victim to monied interests?
               | 
               | Go with either the FDR route (94% tax rate), or the CCP
               | route (clip the wings of the Icaruses who fly too high).
               | 
               | Edit: if the above are too extreme, another approach
               | would be firm and consistent application of anti-
               | competitive laws, resurrecting the fairness doctrine, and
               | stop pretending that artificial constructs have human
               | rights.
        
               | SR2Z wrote:
               | > or the CCP route (clip the wings of the Icaruses who
               | fly too high).
               | 
               | This seems like a great way for the monied interests from
               | WITHIN the party to just take full control.
               | 
               | > Go with either the FDR route (94% tax rate)
               | 
               | The reason why this worked is because FDR oversaw the US
               | during a period of incredible change and after the Great
               | Depression. It's not like the tax rate was responsible
               | for his successes.
        
               | RajT88 wrote:
               | That's _a_ solution. Another would be to enshrine in law
               | independent watchdog agencies whose goal is to win
               | trophies for rooting out corruption, reducing waste,
               | preventing or breaking up harmful monopolies, etc.
        
               | jdietrich wrote:
               | How valuable are those trophies compared to bribes, or
               | the tacit bribes of cushy "consultancy" roles? How do you
               | stop lobbyists from gutting those regulators - what use
               | is a fiercely independent regulator that has no
               | resources?
               | 
               | Good governance is _hard_.
        
               | RajT88 wrote:
               | Getting money out of politics is the hardest part.
               | 
               | I am not sure how the US will find the political will
               | short of getting burned badly enough for partisans to
               | align on reform. How bad does it have to get?
        
               | dpark wrote:
               | > win trophies for rooting out corruption
               | 
               | Many a corrupt government has touted their anti-
               | corruption activities that inexplicably seem to snare
               | almost exclusively their political opponents.
        
               | TFYS wrote:
               | That's no solution, since once someone has corrupted said
               | small government, the obvious next step is to use the
               | influence to increase its size and power.
        
               | Teever wrote:
               | But theres a balance to be struck there -- keep the
               | government too small and weak and it is susceptible to
               | corruptive forces from domestic and foreign enemies
               | alike.
               | 
               | So imho it isn't enough to simply keep government 'small'
               | --it is also important to keep it the size proportionate
               | to other potential threats.
               | 
               | It's also important to keep in mind that size is but one
               | dimension and is only being used as a proxy for power
               | which is the ultimate factor that matters -- a government
               | of one person with control of WMDs can be much more of a
               | threat than a large government without WMDs.
        
               | _DeadFred_ wrote:
               | This solution is anti-capitalist.
               | 
               | Capitalism by it's design, and as outlined by it's
               | original and deepest thought leaders requires strong and
               | decisive government oversight to keep it in check and
               | keep it healthy. Being against strong government
               | oversight is to be against a working, Capitalist system
               | and against traditional Capitalist thought.
        
             | websiteapi wrote:
             | Isn't the cause that people just happened to elect someone
             | who doesn't care and is corrupt? Are you implying money
             | decided the election? How do you reconcile this with the
             | fact that trump was outspent?
        
           | steveBK123 wrote:
           | The tariffs are at least partially about crony capitalism if
           | you look how they have repeatedly played out. Announce big,
           | broad, sweeping industry & country level tariffs. Talk to Big
           | Tech execs, quietly delay/rescind specific sub-components or
           | even companies from said tariffs. Rinse & repeat.
           | 
           | The companies left fully paying tariffs are the ones that
           | aren't big enough to have the orange mans ear / "donate" to
           | the ballroom construction.
        
             | HDThoreaun wrote:
             | Trump forced the UAE to buy $2 billion of his stable coin
             | in order to avoid tariffs. He is making $80 million a year
             | farming yields off that. The tariff nonsense was 100% just
             | a backdoor for corruption.
             | 
             | Edit: and I forgot he pardoned the binance guy for
             | facilitating this corruption too. Trumps pardons are the
             | most corrupt in american history but MAGA is still yelling
             | about the hunter biden pardon even though Joe was
             | absolutely right that trump would maliciously prosecute him
        
               | steveBK123 wrote:
               | It's actually a lot of small to midsize manufacturers
               | importing subcomponents that are getting hurt in the
               | heartland. They can't lobby for exemptions & don't have
               | the supplier negotiating power of the megacaps.
        
               | DarknessFalls wrote:
               | I've said this before, but Trump's form of tariffs are
               | basically a firewall and paying tribute opens specific
               | ports and addresses.
        
             | victorbjorklund wrote:
             | Tariffs are not free market. A true free market would have
             | zero tariffs.
        
               | tw04 wrote:
               | And it would quickly be destroyed by competing
               | governments that don't believe in free markets and
               | actively subsidize their industries to capture market
               | share.
        
               | vmg12 wrote:
               | The US has been largely tariff free since the 1900s and
               | it's the largest economy in the world.
        
               | tw04 wrote:
               | Remind me where I can buy a Chinese EV?
               | 
               | And I assume there's no government subsidies to allow US
               | private sectors to compete globally because free market
               | right?
               | 
               | Right?
        
               | vmg12 wrote:
               | I forgot to put in my comment "until recently". And the
               | US auto industry does such so using that as your argument
               | in favor of tariffs doesn't really work.
        
           | ambicapter wrote:
           | > There are legitimate criticisms of a pure free market, but
           | this is "state capitalism" not a free market.
           | 
           | Yeah, that's what OP said. I hate these sort of comments
           | where the poster acts like they vehemently disagree with what
           | was said, but then just restate what was said in a slightly
           | different way.
        
             | jama211 wrote:
             | This should be higher, absolutely right
        
           | SilverElfin wrote:
           | The recent defense bill is evidence of this. Who has access
           | to these contracts and massive spending increases? Is it any
           | random startup that is building a good product? Nope. It's
           | the incumbent companies that are big donors and the various
           | defense tech companies from the Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale
           | ecosystem, who are ideologically aligned to the
           | administration and support them vocally. Same with the new
           | ICE and border agency funding. They're tripling these
           | agencies budgets. Who's getting contracts to hire thousands
           | of new agents or to build software profiling the millions
           | they want to deport in 2026? Their friends like Palantir
           | probably.
        
       | lbrito wrote:
       | Thanks for sharing. The way things are here, this will soon be
       | censored - sorry, I meant flagged - here as well.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Attentive readers will note how often the "this will be
         | censored" comments appear in threads that spend many hours on
         | HN's frontpage.
        
           | lbrito wrote:
           | I get the irony, but its a bit meaningless since we can't
           | compare the quantity of these (yet) uncensored posts with
           | those that have been taken down, and thus aren't visible.
           | 
           | More importantly, other commentors here have already admitted
           | to flagging this entry. The way flagging exists now rewards
           | one-sideism and partisan behaviour - all it takes is a
           | relatively small group of discontented people to take down a
           | story that is otherwise interesting to the vast majority of
           | posters. A counter-flag option would balance things.
        
             | dang wrote:
             | > _all it takes is a relatively small group of discontented
             | people to take down a story that is otherwise interesting
             | to the vast majority of posters._
             | 
             | That's not accurate, because if a story is interesting to
             | the vast majority of users, it will get lots of upvotes--
             | and lots of upvotes is enough to defeat a small number of
             | flags. In that sense, we already have the counter-flag
             | option you're arguing for.
        
               | wswope wrote:
               | What was the ratio of upvotes to flags when this thread
               | was taken down last night?
        
               | dang wrote:
               | What do you mean by taken down?
        
               | lbrito wrote:
               | That's good to know, thank you for the explanation.
               | 
               | Stories don't always get the chance to gather the
               | sufficient amount of up votes before being nipped in the
               | bud by dissatisfied flaggers though, depending on the
               | time of day. Some of them, like
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46357887, clearly
               | had great interest here and got a large number of upvotes
               | that was, nonetheless, insufficient to prevent the
               | flagging.
        
               | dang wrote:
               | That's true. Then again, however, if a story is important
               | enough to the community, it will get reposted--sometimes
               | many times, either with the same URL or a different one.
               | It's not so easy as people assume for flags to suppress
               | that kind of story.
               | 
               | The submission you linked to
               | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46357887), however,
               | was not that kind of story (i.e. one which the majority
               | of users want to see on the frontpage). Rather, it was
               | the kind of story that _some_ users want to see on the
               | front page, but not the majority of users*.
               | 
               | It's the latter class of story which is more vulnerable
               | to flags. That's generally what we want in a flagging
               | system, and I think most HN users would agree with that
               | in principle (though not of course in specific cases
               | where the story is something that one personally finds
               | interesting).
               | 
               | This is predictable from its skeleton, btw: "person X
               | says provocative thing Y about divisive topic Z" is
               | usually not significant new information (https://hn.algol
               | ia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...)
        
       | pjdesno wrote:
       | Bryan Cantrill, "Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing
       | Larry Ellison" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15886728
       | 
       | The specific lines about Ellison and a lawnmower start at 38:28
       | in the linked video; the entire Oracle rant starts at about
       | 34:00.
        
         | nielsbot wrote:
         | We shouldn't anthropomorphize any billionaires. They're not
         | even people at that point, just destructive aliens who
         | undemocratically ruin everyone's good time.
         | 
         | We need confiscatory taxation for a better future.
        
           | smashah wrote:
           | The Ellison Cabal represent the primary enemies of freedom
           | all over this earth. It's imperative to defeat them.
        
           | jama211 wrote:
           | Whilst true, it's important to focus on the worst ones first,
           | as with everything there is a scale.
        
             | embedding-shape wrote:
             | It's kind of saying we should only focus on the #1 mass-
             | murdering dictator in the world, so while many of them are
             | actively slaying people, lets just focus on #1 for now.
             | 
             | No, we can have many targets. People who hoard money for
             | the benefit of themselves with the detriment of society and
             | the population at large are all "destructive aliens who
             | undemocratically ruin everyone's good time" to borrow the
             | words of parent commentator. If just 10% were slightly less
             | evil and egoistic, it would lead to huge improvements, and
             | only a slight reduction to their own lifestyles. That they
             | don't, is a stain on the legacy of humanity.
        
             | Sindisil wrote:
             | Nope.
             | 
             | We need to bring the entire extraction class to heel. They
             | are degrading, even destroying, society.
        
           | paulvnickerson wrote:
           | Don't tell that to Paul Graham.
        
         | belter wrote:
         | Every time I see this video, I feel a strange tenderness for
         | the new generations watching it.
         | 
         | They do not really understand how bad Oracle used to be. This
         | is us, old combat veterans, sitting by the fire, describing
         | unspeakable battles to the youth...knowing full well that they
         | think we are exaggerating. :-)
         | 
         | And the most disturbing part is the realization that the
         | Frankenstein monster itself, Larry Ellison, is still out there.
         | Still roaming free. Still very much alive... An eternal,
         | terrifying, lawnmower wielding zombie of enterprise software
         | and government corrupting rent extraction.
        
       | aerostable_slug wrote:
       | Much is being made of the revelations of the segment. I didn't
       | see any.
       | 
       | Footage of CECOT is widely available as are interviews with
       | former inmates. They allege effectively the same thing as what
       | was claimed here by the accused TdA member. The Salvadoran
       | administration is proud of CECOT and gleefully shows it off,
       | including (as was shown in the segment) the solitary confinement
       | cells.
       | 
       | There were no secrets revealed, nothing particularly new, and
       | most importantly, nothing novel about the case of the accused TdA
       | member. HN is acting like this segment revealed particularly
       | damaging facts and therefore will be urgently scrubbed, but I'm
       | not seeing anything new at all. I think the sentiment that the
       | segment will be censored and we all have to run out and seed it
       | is a bit hyperbolic. You can't try to hide CECOT's conditions
       | when the people who run the prison happily give tours and show
       | off what one might think they'd hide (punishment cells, for
       | example).
       | 
       | There is no smoking gun, but more importantly there's nothing new
       | in the segment that you can't already see in segments on Youtube.
       | In fact, 60 Minutes used other people's footage of CECOT, not
       | their own. Seed this all you want, but I don't think there's
       | going to be a big push to make it go away. It reveals nothing
       | that hasn't already been widely seen.
        
         | morkalork wrote:
         | The difference is the show's audience and its perceived weight
         | and impact. I, a millennial, will watch stuff on youtube and
         | already know about what's happening. That's not relevant. This
         | is about the boomer generation who watches sixy minutes and
         | what they see and perceive.
        
           | lawlessone wrote:
           | He's a bad faith actor.
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46296733
        
             | aerostable_slug wrote:
             | That is extremely rude. I am not posting in bad faith and
             | I'd ask you to apologize if I thought you'd do it in a
             | meaningful way.
        
               | lawlessone wrote:
               | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45999854
               | 
               | >Look, you asked 'is my life better?' and the answer is
               | yes. I haven't seen any of these supposed innocent people
               | being deported everyone keeps bringing up.
               | 
               | >That is extremely rude. I am not posting in bad faith
               | and I'd ask you to apologize if I thought you'd do it in
               | a meaningful way.
               | 
               | I'd never apologize to you, you aren't owed one. You
               | might think i'm being rude, but i'm being more polite
               | than i'd like to be you.
        
               | aerostable_slug wrote:
               | Great job, you've driven a(nother) user away from HN.
               | 
               | I used to love this site, but nonsense like this is
               | Reddit-tier. You win, goodbye.
        
               | lawlessone wrote:
               | >Great job, you've driven a(nother) user away from HN. I
               | used to love this site, but nonsense like this is Reddit-
               | tier. You win, goodbye.
               | 
               | awesome, you promise?
        
       | ProofHouse wrote:
       | It is a total propaganda both ways and if you don't see that,
       | you're not looking clearly. Of course it's absolutely
       | unacceptable to be sending nonviolent illegal immigrants to a
       | terrorist detention center. But then you watch the episode and of
       | course 60 minutes decides to spoil it and not do real reporting
       | by having an immigration lawyer say they are all nonviolent
       | criminals, which is obviously also total bullshit
        
         | beej71 wrote:
         | The report did not say they were all non-violent criminals. It
         | explicitly said some of them were violent criminals.
        
         | Psillisp wrote:
         | "propaganda both ways"
         | 
         | Yuuuuuuup sure is no reason this is happening on archive.org
         | and torrent.
         | 
         | Nooooooo reason the story was Epstein Filed.
         | 
         | No reason at all...
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | Why don't we round up every single person in America then? Many
         | are violent criminals afterall! /s
         | 
         | The lack of due process is what's at issue here.
        
         | doganugurlu wrote:
         | And some of them are nonviolent legal immigrants.
        
       | postflopclarity wrote:
       | everybody involved is evil.
        
       | bparsons wrote:
       | No matter what your politics are, this is a pretty dark turn for
       | the United States.
        
         | doganugurlu wrote:
         | I'd bet $40 that no conservative will agree with that, and $60
         | that very few conservatives will agree with that.
        
       | engineer_22 wrote:
       | I expected a piece titled "Inside CECOT" to have a part where the
       | principal journalist actually goes there.
        
         | bakies wrote:
         | Don't think she could
        
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