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Redditor jokes LimeWire is now a “champ versus the darkness.”
Bari Weiss signed up with CBS in October.
CBS can not include the online spread of a “60 Minutes” section that its editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, attempted to obstruct from airing.
The episode, “Inside CECOT,” included statements from United States deportees who were tortured or suffered physical or sexual assault at an infamous Salvadoran jail, the Center for the Confinement of Terrorism. “Welcome to hell,” one previous prisoner was informed upon getting here, the section reported, while likewise highlighting a clip of Donald Trump applauding CECOT and its management for “excellent centers, extremely strong centers, and they do not play video games.”
Weiss controversially pulled the sector on Monday, declaring it might not air in the United States due to the fact that it did not have crucial voices, as no Trump authorities were talked to. She declared that the sector “did not advance the ball” and simply echoed others’ reporting, NBC News reported. Her strategy was to air the sector when it was “all set,” firmly insisting that holding stories “for whatever factor” takes place “every day in every newsroom.”
Weiss obviously did not recognize that the “Inside CECOT” would still stream in Canada, offering the public an opportunity to see the sector as press reporters had actually planned.
Critics implicating CBS of censoring the story rapidly shared the sector online Monday after finding that it was offered on the Global television app. Utilizing a VPN to link to the app with a Canadian IP address was all it required to bypass Weiss’ block in the United States, as 404 Media reported the sector was submitted to “to a range of file sharing websites and services, consisting of iCloud, Mega, and as a gush,” consisting of on the just recently restored file-sharing service LimeWire. It’s presently likewise readily available to stream on the Internet Archive, where one customer mostly summarized the general public’s action up until now, composing, “can not think this was pulled, not a dang thing incorrect with this sector other than it reveals reality.”
CBS did not instantly react to Ars’ demand to comment. The network deals with criticism from both outdoors and within its studios, as press reporters and CBS audiences question the stability of Weiss’ choice now that the section has actually aired. Just recently designated CBS editor-in-chief, Weiss’ previous experience as a contrarian viewpoint author helming her own right-leaning platform, The Free Press, triggered early issues that she may thin down CBS’s crucial protection of the Trump administration. And the seeming censorship of the “60 Minutes” episode was viewed by some as a canary in a coal mine, validating critics’ worries.
CBS reporter Sharyn Alfonsi, who anchored the section, kept in mind that the Trump administration had actually consistently decreased to comment as the story came together. By postponing the sector entirely since of Trump authorities’ silence, Weiss seemed offering the Trump administration a “kill switch” to obstruct any story they do not desire aired, Alfonsi recommended.
“Our story was evaluated 5 times and cleared by both CBS lawyers and Standards and Practices,” Alfonsi composed in a note to CBS coworkers that was extensively shared online. “It is factually right. In my view, pulling it now, after every strenuous internal check has actually been fulfilled, is not an editorial choice, it is a political one.”
Tim Richardson, journalism and disinformation program director at PEN America, informed NBC News that Weiss ran the risk of harmful CBS’s reliability by making an apparently rash choice to hold off a report that might have disturbed the Trump administration.
“CBS reporters, amongst the very best in this nation, properly made an outreach effort to get the federal government to weigh in on a deeply reported story out of El Salvador,” Richardson stated. “Pulling it back at the last minute due to the fact that the federal government picked not to react is an insult not just to the stability of the reporters however to core concepts of independent news event.”
Early 2000s tool LimeWire utilized to pirate episode
As Americans rushed to share the “Inside CECOT” story, presuming that CBS would be operating in the background to take down uploads, a once-blacklisted tool from the early 2000s ended up being a dependable method to keep the broadcast online.
On Reddit, users shared links to a LimeWire gush, triggering laughes from individuals amazed to see the peer-to-peer service best understood for contaminating moms and dads’ computer systems with infections in the 2000s unexpectedly restored in 2025 to skirt feared United States federal government censorship.
“Yo what,” one user joked, highlighting just the word “LimeWire.” Another user, paradoxically utilizing the LimeWire logo design as a profile photo, reacted, “male, who understood my fond memories prof photo would end up being appropriate once again, WTF.”
LimeWire was developed in 2000 and rapidly turned into one of the Internet’s preferred services for pirating music till record labels won a 2010 injunction that obstructed all file-sharing performance. As the Reddit thread kept in mind, some LimeWire users were personally targeted in suits.
For a while after the injunction, a portion of users kept the service alive by running older variations of the software application that weren’t instantly handicapped. New owners took control of LimeWire in 2022, formally relaunching the service. The service’s about page presently keeps in mind that “countless people and organizations” utilize the international file-sharing service today, however for some early Internet users, the name stays a blast from the past.
“Bringing back LimeWire to unlawfully rip copies of reporting reduced by the federal government is certainly some cyberpunk shit,” a Bluesky user composed.
“We require a champ versus the darkness,” a Reddit commenter echoed. “I agree LimeWire.”
Ashley is a senior policy press reporter for Ars Technica, devoted to tracking social effects of emerging policies and brand-new innovations. She is a Chicago-based reporter with 20 years of experience.
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