It's automated PENDING INVESTIGATION, which is absolutely normal. If your neighbors call the police on you for murdering your wife they will hold you in for further investigations. You aren't yet sentenced to life in prison, and you might very well be released the next day.
On the other hand I think it should be automated after a certain threshold. Like if it's the n-th report of a lot of people against the same player, don't even bother investigating. It's not like there's a conspiracy where random people gather in hordes to report the same dude...
The thousands of people silenced "for nothing" are completely in your head as are the hundreds of threads deleted. Of course ALL the silenced people will say they were silenced for nothing, it's not like criminals are quick to admit any guilt.