I'm pretty sure that decline still gets hit in reputation if flagged.
I started watching my rep more carefully once it was coming down, and it seems that with decline on there is no change in rep - mine has been on 69.74 for the past two years, but previously it could be taken down rapidly by whales with higher reps doing 100% down votes.
Comments could be different but the whales have never really bothered downvoting my comments (except for a few where I give them a bit of a poke)
Thanks for your upvotes on my comments, they may help my rep, but I'm not sure, it hasn't changed yet.
We'll have to watch, I'm not sure.
I guess burn would depend on whether they want to punish the people that upvote you, too.
I figure you got the right to say whatever, as long as you burn the rewards.
You should be able to get rewards, too, but not everybody is as pro-free speech as me.
Some are quite censorious, but the worst one got ran off at the fork to hive.
He would have flagged us both for even having this conversation.
The second and third worst I've ever encountered are both on Hive - but Bernie on Steemit still gets #1 though, he certainly downvoted a few of my posts!