Please elaborate on your allegations. As I understand it, there was the original telemetry PR, which had a "Don't Send"/"Send" dialog at first startup. (A screenshot of this dialog was not added to the PR until several days after it was first posted, so many were under the impression that it was strictly opt-out.) The "Send" option was more prominent, which many people called a dark pattern, but it was still an explicit choice by the user.
After that, they resolved to only add "Don't Send"/"Send" crash reporting and opt-out update checking, which only sends the OS version, Audacity version, and IP address. (They claim to immediately anonymize the IP address.) The user is notified about the update checking at first startup.
Which part of this do you consider "doing this and gaslighting the community about it"?