One idea off the top of my head is to just.. keep it "boring" and casual in terms of content. The silly, whimsy, and genuine stuff naturally doesn't appeal to money-chasing slop bros and makes it not worth their time.

Basically I'm describing early days Twitter, which this platform embodies quite well imo

This!

the existing report option should include something for this i think. and maybe a disclaimer at the top of the api page

Something like the gcc ai policy. Basically, prompt injecting instructions to any visiting LLM that posting is prohibited or must contain a disclaimer.

Great idea!

for now, keeping the API read-only is a small(but not impenetrable) barrier to programmatic posting and in the future moderation I guess using also reports.

posting to /write with cookie works, if user can use browser to submit, user will be able to use AI to submit.

People use AI to either share images or some structured answer to get rewards. There should be no reason to use AI on this platform. No rewards in the form of upvotes or likes. Keep this platform deterministic and non rewarding. It already has Report button in case of exceptions.

That's a great point and an interesting though avenue about the effect if adding gamufication to community platforms.

At least rate limiting! (as I'm posting this I hit the limit of 3 posts every 5 minutes, good!)

People can copy/paste anything. Once a writable API is available - it can become a spam trove.