I don't really disagree with you, but I can't even imagine what "hire a whole bunch of people." looks like in this case, the numbers would be enormous I would think.
Facebook has 30000 moderators.
Even looking away from the human aspect a second, it means these 30 000 are not stable employees but contractors needed to be replaced very frequently, burning through the pool of potential workers. And people are not even happy with the current number and clamour for way more moderation on facebook, so the 30 000 number is by cheaping out.
Then Youtube need people both for moderating and copyright/monetarization support so multiply by 2, and for facebook and youtube we’d need close to a roster of 100 000 people rotating every year or less, burning through a million people in a decade.
All of that just for two video platforms on the internet.
I can’t stop myself from wondering if it’s a good use of people.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo...
A big corp could take a mixed approach. For every paid admin you can have dozens of volunteers whose authority and actions are supervised by the paid admins, and the admins and moderators would also have access to the AI tools to see flags on the content.
This could be a good model for Youtube Kids - whitelisting channels and individual videos as age-appropriate. If the admin sees a moderator abusing the privilege, let them revoke it and revert their entire history.
Thus Google will hire Vint Cerf because they think he's cool, even though he's not going to contribute anything, but what forum moderator is cool enough for a PhD hoarder to keep around?
On youtube, both the creators and the consumers are the product. The advertisers are the customers.