Earlier quoted context omitted.
Spam didn't break email's network effects. Yeah, it hurts it a bit, but there were lots of attempts to build competing email networks that didn't go anywhere. This is partly because email isn't "for" anything except communication. The idea that platforms must stand for something is new and wrong. A good platform stands for nothing and is open to everyone.
This might just come down to why I'm not sure I'm interpreting you right. It's one thing to have the platform equivalent of a spam folder for new top-level posts that smell like junk. But these platforms have more significant design challenges: to cleanly handle replies, retweets + commentary, mentions, comments, threads, and anything else that is sort of inherently contextual (including the possibility that there ar…
My point is a more general one: people argue for censorship as the only way to maintain a workable forum, but, I don't believe that, based on my prior experience. I'm not saying it's easy to build a really great spam filter for social forums, but Slashdot proved out a lot of good techniques, and anyway censoring stuff en-masse just creates a different set of problems: social rather than technical.