this was in response to:

> As builders of web systems, we need to be conscious of which 3rd parties are gaining access to private user data. There's no reason in hell any Google or Facebook widget should be embedded in my health care providers website, yet somehow that's a thing. Any other website is usually even worse.

So commenters have to go through a registration process before commenting. It makes moderation easier.

> It makes moderation easier.

This is why there is no spam on self-hosted WordPress. Oh, wait.