Moderation doesn't scale well, so hundreds of engineers don't go very far even if you put them all on moderation. Google doesn't like to put money on anything that can't be automated (even when it's the appropriate, like customer service), hence you see only ML filters that of course can't tell the difference.
Also, careful what you wish for. As we've seen, one man's moderation is another man's 1A violation. I'd much more prefer comments, downvotes and user defined filters to do the accountability, than a guaranteed-shitty DOA moderation/truth keeper team. I worry much more about YT's slow creep towards a fully auto-play, advertiser friendly TV equivalent.
Like… wtf. If an actual content creator uploads something they filmed in their own garage but there’s a sliver of a poster in the background with Mickey Mouse in it, it’s instantly flagged as a copyright violation.
Straight up reposting of 5 minutes of a movie pretending I be a new one? Fine, go ahead…
Meanwhile the one with 200 views gets their channel banned along with their Google account.
And if someone is a partner, how much money would they make just by the views? Let's exclude followers etc. Do they get something for just the views or do they have to have ads in the video?
I am generally interested in space related subjects, but my feed is constantly full of fake 'live' SpaceX and Elon Musk videos. These are just old SpaceX streams overlayed with crypto scams.
No matter how often I report these videos as misleading, the keep being recommended to me. At the beginning, reporting a video would make it disappear from my feed instantly, but now, even after reporting the video stays in my feed. My guess is that the report/view ratio of my account is probably so bad now that Youtube is no longer processing my reports as trustworthy.