I saw this in the Mercy Feedback thread:
Great job Tom and the team, I’m really glad that the insane number of false flagging that’s been going on in these forums will now begin to be looked into and given actual repercussions. I must say, it’s been getting a bit out of hand. Hopefully we see more action like this be taken in the future.
Yeah i already knew that was gonna happen. Last time people managed to lock a couple of topics by false reporting, Blizzard made an announcement they would be issuing a couple of forum suspensions.
welp looks like flag spamming is the new downvote
I’m not surprised this has happened, some players are presumably getting tired of feeling ignored.
Its been this way for awhile but its only just now effecting official threads so now itll be taken seriously 
I’ve said it before and will say it again
The flag button is the new downvote/i disagree/ your opinion hurt me button
people are using flag as downvote ( and system is automatic)…just bring back downvote…or it can have a different look…like is a hearth, downvote can be broken hearth…
But creating threads that already exist is against the CoC isn’t it, thus not misusing the flag system? Or am I not understanding what is happening?
Creating Duplicate Threads
This category includes:
Unbelievable, this is why my topics on trans heroes are getting locked. Thanks to downvotes by trans phobes.
Well we aren’t going anywhere and with this hopefully people will leave the trans hero request threads in peace.
Aaaand the thread’s been autolocked again already due to excessive flags.
Isn’t this community wonderful?
It’s just human nature to use something that works even and especially if others are inconvenienced by it.
I’d hardly call this “using something that works” and much more just trolling the system.
That was the point. As long as a system is open for use by humans, it’s open for misuse by humans for the pettiest of reasons.