60 Minutes episode on brutal El Salvador prison, pulled from air by CBS, appears online; The Guardian, December 23, 2025

 Jenna Amatulli , The Guardian; 60 Minutes episode on brutal El Salvador prison, pulled from air by CBS, appears online

"Alfonsi notes the poor conditions in the prison, showing images of half-dressed men with shaved heads all lined up in rows in front of bunks stacked four high. The bunks have no pillows or pads or blankets. The lights are kept on 24 hours a day and detainees have no access to clean water.

Alfonsi pointed to a 2023 report from the state department that “cited torture and life-threatening prison conditions” in Cecot, she said: “But this year, during a meeting with President Bukele at the White House, President Trump expressed admiration for El Salvador’s prison system,” before airing footage of Trump saying: “They make great facilities. Very strong facilities. They don’t play games.”

The segment also talks to Juan Pappier, deputy director at Human Rights Watch, who helped write an 81-page report that detailed Cecot’s pattern of “systematic torture” and found that nearly half the men in the prison did not actually have a criminal history. Pappier said the study was based on information obtained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s own records. Alfonsi confirmed that 60 Minutes independently corroborated Human Rights Watch’s claims.

William Losada Sánchez, a Venezuelan national and former Cecot inmate, also describes to Alfonsi what it was like to get sent to “the island” – a punishment room where prisoners would be sent if they could not comply with being forced to sit on their knees for 24 hours a day.

“The island is a little room where there’s no light, no ventilation, nothing. It’s a cell for punishment where you can’t see your hand in front of your face. After they locked us in, they came to beat us every half hour and they pounded on the door with their sticks to traumatize us,” he said.

The segment briefly touches on Kristi Noem’s visit to Cecot. Pinto claims the Department of Homeland Security secretary did not speak to a single detainee during her visit...

Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator, shared the episode online, saying: “Take a few minutes to watch what they didn’t want you to see. This story should be told.”"

‘60 Minutes’ Report Was Pulled Off the Air. Now It’s on the Internet.; The New York Times, December 23, 2025

 Michael M. Grynbaum, The New York Times ; '60 Minutes’ Report Was Pulled Off the Air. Now It’s on the Internet.

"CBS News caused a controversy after it pulled a report from Sunday’s episode of the long-running news program that featured the stories of Venezuelan men who were deported by the Trump administration to a brutal prison in El Salvador. But the 13-minute segment, as originally edited by “60 Minutes” staff members, soon surfaced online in full.

The last-minute change had already set off a political firestorm. Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, said she postponed the segment because its reporting was flawed and incomplete. Her critics — including the “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, Sharyn Alfonsi — saw it as an attempt by CBS to placate the administration. CBS is owned by David Ellison, a technology heir who is trying to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal that needs federal regulatory approval.

Now the viewing public can draw its own conclusions. After a Canadian television network briefly posted the video on its streaming app on Monday, copies were quickly downloaded and widely shared on social media."

Bari Weiss yanking a 60 Minutes story is censorship by oligarchy; The Guardian, December 23, 2025

 Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian; Bari Weiss yanking a 60 Minutes story is censorship by oligarchy

"One tries to give people the benefit of the doubt. But now, when it comes to Bari Weiss as the editor in chief of CBS News, there is no longer any doubt.

A broadcast-news neophyte, Weiss has no business in that exalted role. She proved that beyond any remaining doubt last weekend, pulling a powerful and important piece of journalism just days before it was due to air, charging that it wasn’t ready. Whatever her claims about the story’s supposed flaws, this looks like a clear case of censorship-by-editor to protect the interests of powerful, rich and influential people.

The 60 Minutes piece – about the brutal conditions at an El Salvador prison where the Trump administration has sent Venezuelan migrants without due process – had already been thoroughly edited, fact-checked and sent through the network’s standards desk and its legal department. The story was promoted and scheduled, and trailers for it were getting millions of views.

I’m less bothered by the screw-ups in this situation – for example, the segment is already all over the internet as, essentially, a Canadian bootleg – than I am by her apparent willingness to use her position to protect the powerful and take care of business for the oligarchy. Which appears to be precisely what she was hired to do.

Journalism is supposed to “afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted”, but Weiss seems to have it backwards.

I can’t know what’s in her mind, of course, but I know her actions – her gaslighting about how it would be such a disservice to the public to publish this supposedly incomplete piece, and her ridiculous offer to provide a storied reporting staff with a couple of phone numbers of highly placed Trump officials."

MAGA-Curious CBS Boss Goes Silent on Axed ‘60 Minutes’ Segment; The Daily Beast, December 23, 2025

 Josh Fiallo , The Daily Beast; MAGA-Curious CBS Boss Goes Silent on Axed ‘60 Minutes’ Segment

"Discussion of the growing 60 Minutes controversy was conspicuously absent from a CBS editorial meeting on Tuesday morning.

The network’s MAGA-curious new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, who personally spiked a segment critical of the Trump administration that was set to air Sunday night, was on the call but did not address the now-viral report that a Canadian affiliate mistakenly aired...

Although it did not receive its primetime Sunday evening slot, the 14-minute segment still reached a global audience after the Canadian broadcaster Global TV mistakenly published the episode on its streaming app. 

The clip has repeatedly been hit with copyright strikes on YouTube and other social media platforms, but it keeps popping back up on X, BlueSky, and Substack."

‘I ultimately had to comply’: ‘60 Minutes’ EP faces fallout after Bari Weiss shelves story; The Washington Post, December 22, 2025

 

Liam Scott

 and 

Scott Nover

, The Washington Post; ‘I ultimately had to comply’: ‘60 Minutes’ EP faces fallout after Bari Weiss shelves story

"Kelly McBride, senior vice president at the Poynter Institute, said requiring on-camera interviews with administration officials could be abused to manipulate coverage.

“It would give them the power to pick and choose which stories they want to go out,” McBride said. “It would allow them to literally craft the narrative themselves.”

It’s also uncommon for such a deeply reported segment to be pulled at the last minute, according to McBride. “This is a really high stakes story, and if she [Weiss] wanted to be involved in the process of green lighting or red lighting, that should not happen the day before the story is ready to run,” McBride said."

Yanked "60 Minutes" episode aired in Canada; Axios, December 22, 2025

 Sara Fischer , Axios; Yanked "60 Minutes" episode aired in Canada

[Kip Currier: CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss "knows her assignment": run editorial interference for oligarch Paramount Skydance tech baron bosses Larry and David Ellison (who own CBS) and the Trump 2.0 administration.

In one of the first major tests of Weiss's censorial assignment, she has both succeeded and failed: (1) blocking the airing of a damning 60 Minutes segment set to hear on December 21, 2025 on the human rights and due process violations of the Trump 2.0 administration in deporting detainees to El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison gulag, and (2) unsuccessfully stopping the blocked video from leaking to Canada and the San Francisco-based Internet Archive.]

[Excerpt]

"The "60 Minutes" segment pulled from air by CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss did not include new comments from Trump administration officials, according to a copy of the segment viewed by Axios.

Why it matters: The segment, anchored by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, caused uproar internally over whether it was pulled for political reasons. 

• The package was distributed via an app owned by Global Television which airs "60 Minutes" in Canada.

Zoom in: The segment included interviews with two people who were imprisoned at CECOT, an executive from the nonprofit Human Rights Watch and the director of UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center Investigations Lab.

• One college student, who was detained by U.S. customs before getting deported to CECOT, describes being tortured upon arrival. 
• 
  
• Another man told Alfonsi that he and others were taken to "a little room where there's no light, no ventilation, nothing."
• 
  
• "It's a cell for punishment where you can't see your hand in front of your face. After they locked us in, they came to beat us every half hour, and they pounded on the door with their sticks to traumatize us while we were in there."
• 
  
• "60 Minutes" also said it reviewed available ICE data to confirm Human Rights Watch's findings that suggested only eight deported men had been sentenced for violent or potentially violent crimes.
• 
  

The other side: The segment ends with Alfonsi saying the Department of Homeland Security "declined our request for an interview and referred all questions about CECOT to El Salvador. The government there did not respond to our request."

• The segment included previous comments made by President Trump, who said El Salvador's prison system has "very strong facilities, and they don't play games.""

CBS Frantically Tries to Stop People From Seeing Censored ‘60 Minutes’; The Daily Beast, December 23, 2025

 William Vaillancourt  , The Daily Beast; CBS Frantically Tries to Stop People From Seeing Censored ‘60 Minutes’

"The 60 Minutes story that CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss abruptly pulled from the air on Sunday has been leaked—and the network is responding with copyright takedowns.

Canadian broadcaster Global TV aired the segment, which deals with Venezuelan migrants to the U.S. whom the Trump administration deported to CECOT, the notorious prison in El Salvador. Videos of the segment—in some instances, people recording their television screens—began circulating on Monday. But many didn’t last.

Paramount Skydance, CBS News’ parent company, began issuing a flurry of copyright notices on X, YouTube, and other platforms.

But the video was ultimately saved in the Internet Archive, among other places. 

In it, a Venezuelan college student who sought asylum in the U.S.—and says he has no criminal record—describes what happened to him at CECOT.

“There was blood everywhere, screams, people crying, people who couldn’t take it and were urinating and vomiting on themselves,” Luis Munoz Pinto said. “Four guards grabbed me, and they beat me until I bled until the point of agony. They knocked our faces against the wall. That was when they broke one of my teeth.”"

, IGN; Copyright Takedowns Issued After What Looks to Be a Leaked Avengers: Doomsday Trailer Posted Online, December 16, 2025

TOM PHILLIPS, IGN; Copyright Takedowns Issued After What Looks to Be a Leaked Avengers: Doomsday Trailer Posted Online

 "Copyright takedowns are targeting what appears to be a leaked version of Marvel's first Avengers: Doomsday trailer, which is now being snapped out of existence across social media.

Uploads of the video file began yesterday, and were initially easy to find across social media. But today, copyright notices have replaced numerous instances of the file on X and reddit, and the original video is nowhere to be seen YouTube."

Dr. Dre, Greene Feud Over Music Copyright in Politics: Explained; Bloomberg Law, January 11, 2023

Isaiah Poritz, Bloomberg Law; Dr. Dre, Greene Feud Over Music Copyright in Politics: Explained

"The dust up is the latest in a long history of musicians fighting politicians they say use their songs for political purposes—like campaign rallies and ads—without permission, and in violation of copyright law.

The complaints go back decades. Bruce Springsteen famously demanded that Republican President Ronald Reagan stop using his “Born in the U.S.A.” for his re-election campaign. The soul duo Sam & Dave in 2008 requested that then-presidential candidate Barack Obama stop playing “Hold On, I’m Comin’” at his campaign events."

Baby Yoda GIFs Are Being Pulled For Copyright Concerns; ScreenRant, November 23, 2019

Josh Plainse, ScreenRant; Baby Yoda GIFs Are Being Pulled For Copyright Concerns

"Baby Yoda GIFs from the Disney+ show The Mandalorian are being pulled from the internet, apparently due to claims of copyright infringement. Last week, the Star Wars spin-off show The Mandalorian released its first episode along with the simultaneous launch of Disney's streaming service. The show's first episode, titled “Chapter One,” ended with a character reveal which has played a huge role in the creation of viral memes and GIFs throughout the entirety of the internet, all of them containing The Mandalorian character referred to as Baby Yoda for now."

Kim Dotcom's Mega 'not being used for wide-scale copyright infringement'; Guardian, 10/17/13

Stuart Dredge, Guardian; Kim Dotcom's Mega 'not being used for wide-scale copyright infringement' : ""Kim Dotcom may be seen as a villainous pirate-king by the creative industries, but his Mega cloud storage service is attracting white-collar professionals, according to its chief executive Vikram Kumar. "The segment that seems to be most interested in Mega, and in paying for space, security and privacy tends to be professionals," Kumar told the Copyright and Technology conference in London this morning, beaming in for his keynote interview via Skype. "Accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, architects... These are people that want to use the internet, are concerned that their confidential client information may get compromised, and who are willing to pay for security and privacy online.""