The automation should be setting flags on videos. Users should have preferences for opting in or out of flags with reasonable defaults. If there is a jurisdictional requirement in a users location YouTube sets the preference to disabled according to the law and shows a link to the regional law so users understand.
Hence abuse is a local thing too. One can be getting flagged in one region but not in another. ‘Abuse’ amounts to getting certain flags auto-applied in some locations or whatever. Should not affect the account itself though.
Yet another instance of where the right thing is done by Google only if the journalists gets involved.
YouTube also blocks ex-muslim youtubers. Google has become another evil to deal with for them.
A company like Google should not be allowed to run a company like YouTube. They should be separate entities.
Disclaimer: Former Technical Solutions Engineer for GCP, aka Support for Customers. Also Former Engineer on YouTube Caching.
To get it out of the way, I do not agree that it should've taken a journalist to get involved to have this situation solved.
However, I'd like to prompt Hacker News with how would you handle receiving support requests from a product that has >2.7B users. Almost all of which are non-directly revenue generating, across hundreds of different languages, in every conceivable location in the world.
It's an extremely hard problem to solve, but I don't think anyone has got it right. I'll be playing devil's advocate in the comments. Keep me busy for my flights.