Honestly, I immediately noticed that sentence too, and it really detracts from your article. As for your attack on G+, the only real problem I see is if they p

Honestly, I immediately noticed that sentence too, and it really detracts from your article. As for your attack on G+, the only real problem I see is if they promote G+ posts over the original. But that could also just happen because maybe many of your "friends" liked or shared the G+ post (that wouldn't be surprising), and you being logged in to google, the algorithm interpreted those social cues of high importance for you. The best solution, though, would be if those "social love" was transferred to the linked article.