"Minimize awareness"? Obviously we don't try to do that, nor would we want to, or even think that way.
The reason there was a penalty—the mildest possible—was procedural. For several months after the Snowden news broke back in 2013, HN's front page was overrun with copycat stories that were simply follow-ups and added no new information. Many users complained about this, and they were right. So we applied the best tool we had available, with the intention of taking it off when the flood died down, and so we eventually did.
