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Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

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Re: Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

#31

Post by runandcode »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #17
sehr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be able to make a blog post without annotations accusing you of disseminating misinformation and suppressing free thought, for one. I think you're severely overrating the quality of Internet comments too, and with these annotations there isn't even a report feature available to help clean them up. Genius.

> I think you're severely overrating the quality of Internet comments Maybe so, but I think perhaps you're underrating the desire by state and corporate actors for tools to suppress free discourse. > there isn't even a report feature available No, there definitely is a "Report Abuse" button. But, there clearly isn't much in the way of a global reputation/meta-moderation system, except what's carried over from the ori…

The Report Abuse button seems like it was just recently added, in the past day. It was not present when the tool was originally released.

Re: Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

#32

Post by runandcode »

web007 wrote: post #21
simonw wrote: post #11

In case you were wondering how it works, this library is a rack middleware wrapper around this JavaScript: var annotated = window.location.href.indexOf("genius.it/") != -1; if (annotated) { window.location.href = window.location.href.replace("genius.it/", "") }

Leftpad all over again.

Hey, OP here.

I originally intended to leverage Rack all the way through by inspecting headers. However, much to my chagrin, I discovered that Genius does not reveal its identity in the headers, so I had to resort to JS instead to accomplish my goal.

Re: Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

#33

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

runandcode wrote: post #31
MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're severely overrating the quality of Internet comments Maybe so, but I think perhaps you're underrating the desire by state and corporate actors for tools to suppress free discourse. > there isn't even a report feature available No, there definitely is a "Report Abuse" button. But, there clearly isn't much in the way of a global reputation/meta-moderation system, except what's carried over from the ori…

The Report Abuse button seems like it was just recently added, in the past day. It was not present when the tool was originally released.

I'll take your word for it; it's pretty shocking that it wasn't there from day one. As I've written elsewhere, it seems like Genius's vision of universal annotations is not really lined up with the/my/some tech folks platonic ideal of it - Genius seems to want to extend RapGenius to the rest of the web to enable a mix of both factual and editorial commentary, whereas the aforementioned ideal would be much more focused on fact checking, not just providing a universal commenting layer.

It's clearly a grayer issue than I first comprehended when writing my initial response to your work; I apologize for my strongly negative tone.

Re: Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

#34

Post by runandcode »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #6

What is the motivation behind this? It strikes me as something like an anti-ad-blocker tool, except instead of serving to protect your sites ad revenue it's just trying to suppress free discourse about your content through a third party tool that happens to be exposed to this kind of suppression, but isn't actually invasive, and is only used by people who opt-in to it anyway. Basically it seems to me like a tool for…

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!

Re: Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

#35

Post by chatmasta »

anoonmoose wrote: post #12
gkop wrote: post #5

Folks blocking, curious your motivations? (I can think of a few but am curious about the specific issues with Genius vs. the platonic ideal of a universal web annotation layer)

I'd have to imagine it's the same as the list of motivations one would provide for disabling comments, which I've seen happen on plenty of sites.

You mean like how CNN disables comments so that people are unable to call them out on their bullshit? So they can post fearmongering articles with little basis in reality, backed up by quotes from unnamed anonymous "intelligence sources?" So they can continue to spread misinformation on behalf of the US government without anyone questioning it?

The mainstream media is a complete poison to society. It needs to be dismantled and ripped apart. It's a dark, dark villain that needs to be exposed to the sunlight and shown for the monster that it is.

That would be easier if comments were allowed on "publications" like CNN, but unfortunately they're disabled.

Personally, I am fully in support of federated "overlay" commenting systems like news genius, because they rightfully remove control/moderation over the comments from the publisher, and place it into the hands of a "trusted 3rd party" (genius).

Re: Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

#36

Post by chatmasta »

runandcode wrote: post #34
MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #6

What is the motivation behind this? It strikes me as something like an anti-ad-blocker tool, except instead of serving to protect your sites ad revenue it's just trying to suppress free discourse about your content through a third party tool that happens to be exposed to this kind of suppression, but isn't actually invasive, and is only used by people who opt-in to it anyway. Basically it seems to me like a tool for…

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 ca…

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?

Re: Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

#37

Post by chatmasta »

sosuke wrote: post #24
MichaelGG wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, there's been tools like this for a while. MS had an annotations tool built into IE in the 90s. (Though I think it required some sort of Office server or something.) Second, her reasoning seems to revolve around not having comments on her site. Isn't this literally what every link aggregator from HN to reddit does? She mentions reddit and others, but doesn't explain how they're different. Apparently it's becaus…

>she's literally complaining about people discussing her work on other sites Things like this don't become a problem until it is so easily organized. A bunch of tweets, FB posts, HN, reddit or other social comments are so scattered they don't have as much impact. The comments aren't visible on the the same page as the content. I'm going to have to think more about this. I've had this thought a couple of times now but…

They are not visible on the same page as the content unless you have news genius installed or have navigated to the news genius proxy for that page. You need to opt in to see the comments.

God forbid people can post organized opinions you disagree with...

Re: Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

#38

Post by chatmasta »

gergles wrote: post #28

I guess Genius doesn't care about the rampant copyright violation involved with the "web annotator"? Using genius.it/ creates derived works, and it does so almost certainly without approval of the copyright owner. I guess they will argue fair use, but hostile 'annotations' definitely reduce the value of the work, they reuse the entire work, and they use the work for commercial gain. I wouldn't consider this a slam du…

Thanks for the interesting, non-inflammatory comment. You raise a good point.

The fact that they proxy the content on their servers definitely puts them in a more vulnerable position than if this were, for example, a strictly client-side chrome extension that fetched annotation metadata and re-rendered the page accordingly.

In the purely client-side case, the full article would not pass through their servers, only bits and pieces of it. It would be easier to argue fair-use if you're only storing parts of the articles, and comments/highlights, on a remote server, instead of proxying the entire content.

(What if the article is behind a paywall, for example? Then genius.it effectively becomes a circumvention proxy.)

Re: Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

#39

Post by zorpner »

chatmasta wrote: post #36
runandcode wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

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…

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.

Re: Code to block unwanted News Genius annotations

#40

Post by koolba »

I'm no JS expert[1] but this doesn't look correct:

     # https://github.com/marlabrizel/genius-blocker/blob/master/lib/genius/blocker.rb#L11
     var annotated = window.location.href.indexOf("genius.it/") != -1;
     if (annotated) {
       window.location.href = window.location.href.replace("genius.it/", "")
     }
Wouldn't this match any instance of "genius.it" throughout the URL, not just at the beginning?

For example it'd match "https://example.com/blog/how-to-block-genius.it" and redirect the user to a (probably) non-existent link with that string removed.

[1]: I just play one on HN.

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