A little OT, I was scrolling/reading the paragraph "We opted not to do the “likes” because..." and suddenly a black panel slid down and hid the entire paragraph. Clicked on it to dismiss, nothing. Clicked on the page to dismiss, nothing.
I'll have to bookmark this for textbook UX bad practice.
I just came back here to write a similar comment. I couldn't believe how intrusive it was to the reading experience. I was so shocked I started playing around with the page to see when it pops up, and never finished reading the article.