But you have a point. YouTube and Google get a lot of flack for things that are emergent properties due to their lack of humans.
YouTube doesn't release many of the details of the methodology or even the content that they block because it can then be circumvented by the people who create and/or circulate it. It can create a streisand effect which only makes that type of content worse by drawing attention to it.
Some of what you can see is in the child sexual abuse material (CSAM) APIs that Google is now sharing to help other organizations detect CSAM material en-masse in their content. These services that were originally built to do so on GMail, Drive, and Youtube.
It's inevitable that in such an environment the system they come up with ends up making less and less sense over time. It's death by a thousand cuts, and I don't think there's a good way to really avoid it.
On the one hand because they are this large, they cannot currate content. On the other hand they are arguing because they are this large they are the only ones who can currate this content.
I would feel more sympathetic to your argument if the companies wouldn't argue both cases at the same time.
I don't really care about sympathy, so much as I care about reality. The companies will do as all companies do. Try to make money by garnering confidence in their product & abilities. Even if they have to lie through their teeth.
Reality is, there isn't a good system (currently) to really curate massive amounts of user submitted video content, in an environment where anyone anywhere can submit said video content.
The problem's scale is always going to lead towards either a compromise of being an open video platform, or a compromise in relation to curation.
Citation needed. I mean, they do use AI for lots of stuff, but let's not describe it as working. It has routinely caused massive aggravation for their biggest content creators, it has been one in a group of changes that has basically made Youtube an unsafe monetization platform and driven the creation of places like Patreon,
Sure, this is the only AI fuck up that is going to get them sued in federal court and face charges of exploiting children, but it's not like the other AI stuff is working well. Basically, their AI is doing a bad job everywhere, it's just that this area is where they face legal liability and so they can't pull out their usual "but the machines told us to!" defence.