They were definitely not. Here is someone in that first thread trying to figure out what is actually going on, and failing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40421757

I had to wade through 12 gigantic generic political subthreads to find this.

"Do you have an example of the changed voice anywhere?" (No replies.)

"Yes, I feel gaslit by the whole situation" is a great summary.

Please post a clip from the time. I'm still curious to hear how similar or not they acually were.