You are targeting the author of the parent comment and making them question their perception of the meaning of 'gaslighting'.

Yes, though gaslighting is a subset of the possible uses for this tool.

In the opposite direction, you could choose to reinforce current ideas. Which, due to confirmation bias, would probably be easier than gaslighting.

From a utilitarian moral perspective, quite a few of the messages they present are actually good ones: quit smoking, drive carefully. Even the one about women initiating sex helps fight against sexist gender roles that women have to wait for the man to initiate everything.

But those are also things people may be comfortable just asking up front.

Of course other messages like "quit your job" for a coworker just seem spiteful and mean spirited.

What? This is just targeted suggestion/propaganda. There is nothing here to degrade the target's self-worth or make them question their own perception.

That is a matter of content not technique; "New research suggests people that use internet handles starting with Homo have tiny penises and poor reasoning skills" - See? Targetted propaganda that denigrates...

Then any media service which lets a user deliver a message enables gaslighting. HN is a gaslighting service because it allowed you to deliver denigrating content to me.

No, gaslighting is systematically disorienting a person by staging confusing events, and blaming that confusion on the target themself. A one-way pipeline of targeted ads is not gaslighting, unless you call your wife crazy when she complains about all these weird ads she's seeing. But that's not what this service is automating.

You underestimate how powerful suggestion / propaganda is. If you keep getting told you're a worthless person, eventually you'll absorb it into your own psyche.