We live in a world being dimished by confirmation bias, but this isn't a new thing. Those who wrote/approved the headlines always had more power than those who wrote the articles.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315096490_Consumers...
edit: disclaimer, no hate on TFA. Just responding to the comment.
> In the present work, we introduce and make available a new dataset containing the activity logs that recorded all activity for 309 Reddit users for one year.
However, tracking over a year might make the subject forget about the whole thing, and act naturally. As far as HN vs Reddit, not much difference really. I mean that as more props to reddit users than anything against HNers.
"How I made it to the top of HN with zero content beyond a catchy title"
It further proves the key to getting your stuff on HN is not to post interesting content, it's to post something that sounds interesting.