Ask HN: It seems like the flag mechanism is abused. Is this okay?

It's a political story and is thus likely to be flagged as off-topic by a large number of people.

Unless a political story has a strong tech slant, expect it to disappear off the front page quickly no mater how many upvotes it gets.

It was about the Hong Kong police using a new technology (likely "DNA paint") to mark protestors, likely for future prosecution

DNA isn't mentioned anywhere in the linked story. It only says blue dye and there is nothing new or technological about that.

Doesn't seem like abuse to me. Nothing particularly new or interesting IMHO, political mainstream topic, people already breaking the rules in the comments, ... are in sum good enough reasons to flag.

This might be off topic but I browse on my phone and sometimes I fat thumb and hide or flag things.