Comments generate page views which are used to set rates for advertising, so generating them has economic benefit for the paper. When you post a comment here now, you are presented with a series of comments to "rate" whether they are "good" (whatever the flock that means) or "civil." The latter is a test to see if you are voting the way the bot wants you to vote. If you diverge from that, you are presented with a series of warnings, and eventually "restricted." By tweaking the parameters of the bot, it's possible to gradually winnow a group of commenters to ones who all vote the same way. Trump would like to put the whole political system on something like this. I heard Putin uses it, but instead of restricting you, someone comes around and shoots you in the knees. You've heard of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, this is Artificial Stupid, or AS.