You are right about the content on here. Everyone should have a right to say what they want. However, everyone else has the right to agree or disagree with it. I tend to take a logical leaning, and here is the rub: if a flag is considered censorship, then a vote must be considered permission. The opposite of voting is not refraining from voting. It is flagging.
The fact is, the powerful and wealthy have always been in charge of media and communication. Steemit, regardless of its hands-off approach to content, is not going to be any different in this regard. Who gets to decide what trends and what doesn't on this platform? Stripped down, this would be the powerful and wealthy.
If the most influential people on steemit thought spam was cool, then we'd see a lot more of it. If they thought it wasn't, then it would get voted off the island. Here, it appears to be somewhere in the middle.
In the case of bot-votes, trending is a purchased conglomeration of votes meant to mimic the wealthy. And this is a middle ground that levels the playing field somewhat. However, the more powerful users can (and will) determine how these play out. They could just as easily downvote all bot votes. And they don't, largely because some of them are the ones profiting from them in the long run, partly because some of them believe these are a great boost for minnows.
Simply put, the ones who decide what trends and doesn't, whether it's in the news, on the radio, on social media, or on this blockchain--are the powerful and wealthy, with few outliers. But this is the most common human social construct.
In the case of downvoting a post from a bot-vote over 3.5 days, these are the rules someone with power made up, for reasons they believe are meant to shape the platform in a positive way. Take it or leave it. Or fight it. But those are the rules. You know the risks and so does everyone else. When you are wealthy and powerful, you can decide what the rules are. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying, that's how it is.
On another capitalist note, if we were to take an Atlas Shrugged approach and allow spam and crappy content take all the rewards and trend, then this platform would self-obliterate on its own and it would need no help from whales.
The only reason spammers have any ounce of life at all on here is because there is good content and good investment into this community to begin with. If all of the good guys left, the spammers and greedy self-perpetuating whales would be like leaches sucking scum off the bottom of a dried up lake.
I am just saying, actions like a 
The overwhelming number of users who swoop in on the 11th hour of day 6 to win the bid on poorly written and promotional posts are just as guilty of pilfering as another user is of downvoting their pilfer. Their bids 1) do nothing for the life and sustainability of the platform, 2) take advantage of unsuspecting new users who otherwise think their bot bid is worth something, 3) and their content and disingenuous behavior degrade the value of STEEM.
But other than that, they're fantastic. :0)
RE: 50 STEEM bounty for explaing basic Steem stuff to @the-resistance.