[kccqzy]

This is not at all weird if you are a HN user with somewhat unpopular opinions. The HN guidelines say flag something if it's egregious. People end up treating flagging as a stronger version of downvotes.

My most recent experience being flagged matches this up: I was presenting an argument that Chrome's manifest V3 is a good thing and it was flagged to death. I have no doubt that some users just flag this kind of opinion reflexively.

[ryandrake]

People openly admit[1] to abusing the flagging system as their own automated mega-downvote to try to steer[2] the topics towards ones they like and away from ones they don't like.

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43150182

2: Their exact word