What strange irony that you post about it on HN, effectively a detached comment section for a news site. Was that intended?
Regardless, I think you're making the tacit assertion that comments for the news belong somewhere. How? How should its censorship work? Would that take care of the problem?
There definitely is an effect to white-labeling and brand confidence. When comments are hosted by an organization - regardless of the specific legal implications and understandings - people assume the brand has some ownership of the contents of those comments... No matter how big of a font is used to say "The opinions expressed below belong solely to their owners and do not reflect the views of <BRAND>."
