I’ve had replies flagged but then approved almost instantly as well, I was surprised at first, but I get it…
Moderation is always a difficult thing and now that governments are getting more and more interested in what can get seen by minors, I can only see it getting worse in the short time.
Even allowing someone to be able to post freely once they have completed a grace period or proved they are trustworthy could still post something undesirable. I don’t think that hoping people will abide by the terms of use and behave will work either, you would end up with the same kind of thing.
A quick solution would be to allow the post creators to self-moderate replies, but this also has its own risks – they might not like a reply and just delete it.
You could use the report option to automatically hide a post/reply if enough people click it but then you have the same risks – down voting someone’s content just because you can (like review bombing).
Then there are hacked accounts, spam etc.
You always have the AI option, but you’d have to define what is acceptable/quality over undesirable and train it, but it will still flag conversations incorrectly and need reviewing.
Every option has its downsides and with new legislation about to be discussed by government it might be best to leave as it for now and see what happens. If they do push though their ideas about Real IDs, then everything would change.
(I actually sat here wondering who to post this as a reply to as it kind of responds to everyone’s comments, settled with Boomer in the end)