It’s basically gambling on the nerdiness of the question’s writer. Do they think HTML is a programming language? Do they know that people think it’s a programming language and trying to trap them? Do they know it’s not a programming language but also know most people would think it is one and so are using the common, loose definition of a programming language in order not to trap people?
My brain would melt
Ars Technica has always been very upfront about it whenever they cover news related to reddit. It’s certainly not ideal, but Ars Technica remains a very good website for tech news