Flags can be a double-edged sword depending on the point of view from which you see it. It is very useful when we want to mark a publication that goes against the rules but before giving flag there are certain factors that must be taken into account.
https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2018/05/11/18/24/flags-3391239_960_720.jpg
[pixabay](https://pixabay.com/es/banderas-mar-bandera-golpe-viento-3391239/)

The first of these is the STEEM POWER as expected. If you don't have enough SP to hide or do enough damage to the enemy then don't even try, much less if your SP is higher than yours as you are losing "in theory".

Let us remember that there is such a thing as voting power, and that a negative vote consumes the same as a positive vote.

![image.png](https://gateway.ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbqorVAi1t8W5ZXXVGcyAochWaZCovNRtZefoVxfAFkNS)
Source: steemd.com

This means that when you give a 100% negative vote, the amount of money that the user who receives it loses is the same amount that the user who gives it loses. To explain this I will give a simple example.

If a vote of mine with a 100% weight when my voting power is 100% is worth $10 the approximate number of votes I can give a day with that effectiveness is 10. This means I can give $100 a day in rewards for my vote. If I use one of those 10 negatively I will have given a total of $90$-10$=$80$, but why $80$ if with the remaining 9 I can give myself $90$ in rewards? is because the no vote took $10 away from you (that's why you'll have $90 that day instead of $100) and also took $10 away from the person who got the vote. So that we can see it clearly, let's take a look at the reward pool. Let's say you have a total of $110. I get a $10 post of rewards, then you use your 10 votes in your favor to get $100, the total withdrawn from the pool is $110, but if you use one of your 10 votes to give me a negative vote and 9 to give yourself 10 votes in your favor you get $90 and I get $0, the pool gets $20, this $20 could be $10 and my $10. I mean, we both lost the same amount.! 

https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/09/08/16/54/emotiguy-1654862_960_720.png
[pixabay](https://pixabay.com/es/emotiguy-triste-pensativo-la-cara-1654862/)

## Is the flag an unusable function in steemit?
Of course not, of course not. There are cases in which the function applies, as I mentioned at the beginning depends on the SP of the one who gives the flag, for example a user with enough SP can use 1% of his negative vote to punish a user with very little, if 1% is enough to hide his publication the user who gave the flag will take very little time to recover his voting power, However, whoever receives the flag will not be able to recover, it is true that both will lose the same amount, that is inevitable, but the user who has a lot of SP sees it as an insignificant amount which he can afford to lose in order to feel the satisfaction of punishing his enemy. In my opinion it is a way of voting for money that many of us need even to survive.
https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2018/05/14/11/02/woman-3399505_960_720.jpg
[pixabay](https://pixabay.com/es/mujer-desayuno-taza-alimentos-3399505/)

Everyone is free to use their voting power as they wish, but the idea of voting power is to reward good publications, people who put in their best effort to share their ideas and contribute to the growth of the community, many of those publications are lost in oblivion without any reward while some users vote their voting power by giving themselves flags, I have even noticed that to vote for a good publication they think a lot about it and if they decide to vote they lower their voting percentage so as not to give so much, but if they are going to give flags, it seems more exciting to take away than to give. But we hurt the community, and it's bad to vote for the money that others urgently need.

## So I should let the abusers hurt the platform without doing anything?
Of course not, of course not. There is a team created especially to deal with the abusers, if someone is abusing report it to @steemcleaners they have reserved a good amount of SP to punish the abusers, let them take care of it and you dedicate yourself to rewarding publications that you like, this way you contribute more to the platform. You may ask yourself logically, and if @steemcleaners is not also throwing away the money? The answer is no. If you use your voting power by giving out flags you will never get any rewards, that's why you're throwing away the money, but they (the team members) get rewards in the form of direct transfers, so that someone is getting rewards and at the same time stopping the abusers, which is very necessary because they pollute STEEMBLOCKCHAIN of garbage that can affect us all.

Summary
When you give someone a flag you think you punish them by taking away rewards, but if that is true for them it is also true for you. Instead, you can use your voting power to reward good publications and encourage great authors to continue contributing to the community. Abusers can be reported to @steemcleaners who know very well what to do with them, you will even receive rewards for the reports you make and you will prevent others from retaliating against you. If you still want to keep giving out flags because you don't mind throwing away your money, consider that others do if they need it and you can help them, but if you have no heart and still want to keep giving out flags then the only advice I have left to give you is not to make unnecessary enemies.

Greetings, a hug and thanks for reading my publication.!

@steemuper