This epidemic will continue to spread unless the burden of proof is placed on the party filing the complaint, along with having penalties imposed for filing bogus complaints.
There should be "know your customer" for claimaints for laws requiring companies to follow up on legal claims like DMCA reports. KYC is obviously socially accepted and easily implemented since it's being required for so many other things. The whole basis of an adversarial legal system is that you need two legal persons on either side. This is a context in which you have to wonder why it isn't already like that.
Once false reports from fake companies and people are infeasible there will be much less of a problem. All without changing the penalties.
If I had the time, I would love to aggregate listings from Lumen that use sites like uniontimes and thetribunepost to instigate false takedowns, and list them all so that they would come up in a Google search showing that someone had (fraudulently) tried to have the stories removed. I’m not sure how much of a deterrent it would be, but I imagine that sort of thing would at least prevent people from recommending the fake-takedown approach to others.
I don't think total control is possible in such an environment, DMCA or not.
I do not see why a corporations scale of intellectual property protection should have its burden foisted upon everyone else.
It makes to sense to provide a modicum of protection that can apply to individuals, but just as individuals can't require a policeman to stand guard outside their home 24/7, corporations must hire security guards if they want extra protection from the undesirable elements their commercial activity attracts.