indyank - 2:19 pm on Sep 24, 2012 (gmt 0)

But do keep in mind that it might also be part of some kind of an A/B or multivariate testing built into their algorithms to determine what their users like the best. I would believe this more than the "flags and human raters approval" theory.

Google does use human raters but I don't think it is in the way that you seeem to have explained here.