[runandcode]

Hey MaxfordAndSons, OP here.

Thanks for your comment. News Genius' site is a bit misleading, as there are a few different ways one could wind up with site annotations.

The first, as you mention, is by opting in. I agree that such a tool could be a useful way to foster discourse on your content. This tool is not meant for people who opt in to Genius annotations.

Further down on Genius' page, it states that any page can be annotated simply by prepending `genius.it/` to a site URL, regardless of whether the content publisher has granted permission. Unfortunately, the comments section of any Internet page tends to showcase some extremely uncivilized discourse. This is why many site authors choose to disable comments. Genius circumvents these people's wishes. Further, unlike a comments section, Genius does not actually notify the owner of a website if his/her content is annotated. Site owners have the option to moderate comments; it took Genius until today to even add a Report Abuse button.

Hopefully this clarifies some of the motivation. Thanks for sharing your perspective!

[chatmasta]

The readers of the comments need to opt-in to reading the newsgenius annotations. So the argument of "some people might find these comments offensive" does not make sense. If you find the comments on news genius offensive, don't read them.

If you ask me, site owners should NOT have a right to moderate comments. That just encourages silencing dissent and disagreement and publishing misinformation, as others have noted.

Should site owners also have the right to issue takedown notices to reddit or hacker news when someone links to their site? Or to delete comments on those websites?

[zorpner]

I haven't seen many people arguing that News Genius shouldn't be permitted to exist (except perhaps on copyright/derived work grounds, which given their implementation is quite arguable), just that it's not a good idea as implemented. And, of course, people are well within their rights to use javascript/etc to prevent the embedding that News Genius does, or to e.g. block referrals from reddit or HN.