There has been a change in the platform. They updated the wording for 'flagging' to make it more along the lines of a downvote. Users are allowed to flag/downvote over "disagreement over rewards". There is also an open GitHub issue (opened by the Steemit dev team) to change the UI back to 'downvote' instead of flag.
users were always allowed to downvote whatever they want. "flags" have never existed on the blockchain. As ive said elsewhere, the current design of the UI is akin to ballot tampering. Attempting to stop people from using their vote by misrepresenting what it really is.
I worked hard on my Steemit Ham Supper tonight only to have it flagged 3 or4 times for absolutely no reason !!! m already only posting part time because of all of this and of course the smooth couldnt wait to downvote me again FOR QUALITY , ALL ORIGINAL PHOTOS AND CONTENT !!! IM PISSED !!!
then quit i guess. If you think youre entitled to a huge amount of money for pics of ham and don't think anyone ought to have the right to vote against that, its probably not the best platform for you. Obvi, i don't want people to quit, but downvotes are a part of the system (and an essential part at that). If you really dislike the system that much there's a ton of other SM platforms without voting/downvoting.
Certainly, if you think there is enough in the reward pool to pay you a full time salary to post pictures of ham, at least right now that isn't the case... the reward pool and the price of steem won't support it. At least, not without forcing everyone else to go without any significant rewards.