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)
Also, it's just another walled garden for content from a company with past ethically questionable business practices.
For another, Genius is a company with a history of controversy. I can imagine some sites being ok with universal annotations but averse to Genius. It'd be useful to know how Genius is going about things wrong, because I dream of someday having a universal annotation layer that doesn't provoke widespread blocking.
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).