Odd, haven’t seen titles like this before. It seems like a weird policy, to change headlines in a manner that is misleading if parsed following normal English grammar rules. And especially to only apply that rule in controversial cases.
If the goal is to make it clear that the claim is not endorsed by HN, why not something like
AuthorName: “This is clearly a quote because it is in quotation marks”
If the goal is to make it clear that the claim is not endorsed by HN, why not something like
AuthorName: “This is clearly a quote because it is in quotation marks”