> You can use automated systems as a first line of defense against spam, and then hire people to manually verify every submission that makes it through. You can even use that as opportunity to ensure a certain quality of submission, even if it was submitted by a person.

The problem is, once you do manual upfront moderation, you lose a lot of the legal protections that UGC-hosting sites enjoy - manual approval means you are accepting the liability for anything that is published.