Styling in code fences [duplicate]

I recently supplied an answer and the two asterisks were causing italics so I kept messing around until I figured out a solution.

Is it expected behavior that regular code fences of triple back-tick and four leading spaces cause this issue?

Problem:

Tests:

Note: Meta does not exhibit this issue; err, feature?

triple back-tick - italics

(?<=^.{3})[^ ]*|(?<=\d{4}).*Article

four leading spaces - italics

(?<=^.{3})[^ ]*|(?<=\d{4}).*Article

triple back-tick with language hint - no italics

(?<=^.{3})[^ ]*|(?<=\d{4}).*Article