ok now is my chance.

what is this (opens new tab) phenomenon?!

In the article, there's a link in the text right before they put that parenthetical. I'm guessing they're saying that the link interested them so they clicked it to read but opened it in a new tab so they could finish the current article first.

	▲	roywiggins 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It seems to be hidden text in the page? Either way, it just shows up alongside links when you copy text from the article.

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stavros 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Probably a screen reader callout.

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jvm___ 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

"microdose cocaine"