What is particularly bad is whales flagging posts without any explanation so the user doesn't even necessarily know what they have done wrong.
If you have taken the time to flag at least have the courtesy to say why otherwise the user doesn't learn anything except resentment.
I also think it is bad form if you don't check back to see if the person has corrected the behaviour so you can remove the flag.
I think part of the problem is that some of the whales are completely untouchable due to their high reputation scores so they are ignorant of how damaging a flag can be to a new user.
It is something whales don't have to worry about so don't even give a second thought to it.
This only hurts Steemit as a platform and scares away new users.
I don't blame whales exclusively or even primarily for this, and to the extent they are to blame it's mainly because they just don't have the time to keep up with everything and not because they are arrogant or "untouchable". Bots on the other hand, which are often run by whales, are very problematic. Bots simply can't be discerning and consequently vote on people rather than posts.