TikTok has reportedly sent an email to its staff under the trust and safety department (basically, the moderators), announcing plans to lay off “hundreds” of them as the UK’s Online Safety Act comes into effect.
In the email, the short-form video giant said it is “considering that moderation and quality assurance work” at the London site would no longer be carried out. These proposed changes are not just coming to the UK but also to South and Southeast Asia.
According to the internal memo, the company wants to “concentrate operation expertise in specific locations”, which, according to Financial Times, means creating regional hubs instead of having teams in individual markets. A similar team in Berlin was recently shut down as well.
So, what does the platform plan to replace these people with? AI. TikTok claims that new technologies, like large language models, have gotten so advanced that they are reshaping its moderation strategy. In a statement provided to FT, the company said it is continuing a reorganization it began last year:
We are continuing a reorganisation that we started last year to strengthen our global operating model for Trust and Safety, which includes concentrating our operations in fewer locations globally to ensure that we maximise effectiveness and speed as we evolve this critical function for the company with the benefit of technological advancements.
TikTok’s not the only company that’s replacing human employees with robots. You might have heard of Recruit Holdings, the owners of Glassdoor and Indeed, letting go of over 1200 employees from departments like R&D and tech, as part of its own strategic shift toward AI.
In TikTok’s case, the Communication Workers Union estimates the layoffs could affect a decent chunk of the ~300 people who work at the company’s trust and safety department in London.
John Chadfield, a national organizer for the trade union, suggested that calling it an AI-driven change is a convenient way to mask what is actually a plan to offshore the jobs to places with cheaper labor.
