TikTok cuts hundreds of jobs as it leans towards AI content moderation

TikTok, a popular social media platform is laying off hundreds of employees from its global workforce as it leans towards AI for content control.

The development comes as the subject of AI replacing humans on the job market has been topical in the past few years, although studies have also shown the technology helps businesses optimize operations.

TikTok Malaysia staff suffered the most

This layoff will include a significant number of staff in Malaysia. According to two sources privy to the matter, up to 700 have been terminated in Malaysia.

However, ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company later shed light on the matter saying less than 500 employees were affected by the layoff in Malaysia.

The job cuts were first publicized by the Malaysian Reserve, a business portal on Thursday which explained most of the affected staff were within teams involved in TikTok’s content moderation operations.

One of the sources who spoke on condition of anonymity (as the employees were not permitted to engage with the media) said the layoff was communicated through email late Wednesday.

In an article by Reuters, TikTok confirmed the job cuts and highlighted that hundreds of employees were anticipated to be affected globally, as plans to enhance its content moderation using AI continue to gather pace.

According to a PC Mag, human moderators at TikTok have never had it easy as they were reportedly paid about $1.80 an hour in 2022, which translated to around $10 a day and required to constantly review content containing “murder, suicide, pedophili[a], pornographic content, accidents, [or] cannibalism.”

In 2022, an employee told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that each employee was required to review about 900 videos a day, and watching 700 videos was regarded as “work avoidance.”

Failing to meet the minimum number of videos in a month meant the staff, most of them in Mexico, Malaysia, Colombia, and other developing countries, would lose up to a quarter of their salaries as deducted bonus pay.

TikTok’s workforce includes a mix of automated detection and human moderators to evaluate content posted on the site.

According to the company’s website, ByteDance Inclusively employs staff north of 110,000 dotted across the world in 200 cities.

TikTok is considering more layoffs

As stated by one of the sources, TikTok is considering further retrenchment in November as part of plans to merge some of its regional operations. This is part of a series of job reductions carried out at the company this year.

In April, the company laid off over 250 jobs in Ireland and was reportedly cutting another 1,000 jobs in May from its marketing and operations teams. This was after another 60 employees were send packing from advertising and sales teams.

“We’re making these changes as part of our ongoing efforts to further strengthen our global operating model for content moderation,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.

The Chinese social media firm said it anticipates conducting a capital expenditure of circa $2 billion worldwide in security systems this year alone, as it continues to enhance its operational efficiencies and data security.

TikTok spokesperson said the investments in trust and safety issues come as 80 percent of guidelines violating content are now ridden off with automated technologies.

For TikTok, the layoffs are happening at a time when several global tech companies face significant regulatory pressure in Malaysia coming from the government which has summoned social media companies to apply for an operator’s license by the first month of 2025 to curb cybercrime.

Already, the company recorded a jump in unsafe social media content from early 2024, a position that has prompted TikTok to enhance its monitoring mechanisms on its platforms.