An important note is that users don't gain down vote ability until they have ~500 karma, but have the ability to flag stories before that (maybe even at account creation, but I'm not sure).
The meta-topic here (being danced around) is (1) the ability to <downvote articles> does not exist by design; and (2) flagging is an order of magnitude more powerful than a downvote, in reducing the prominence of a discussion. Hence (3) a mis-use of (2) is arguably ~abusive.
Not exactly accurate. pg modified the required karma for flagging a few months ago.It's probably over 1000 now.
Nah, I have much less Karma than that and I have "flag" buttons but no downvote buttons.
Probably that change didn't affect newer accounts ?