I can't answer you cause I am not economist nor programmer. I am a guy using websites, reading and writing. So if a whale flag a guy (manually or with bots) it's a problem, cause a single whale can compromise the all post / user. Can we agree on this?
The value of SP was huge interest (not now, only in the beginning) it's giving rewards, but I would not say it's flagging people because you don't like what they write or you take revenge for godonlyknows.