Short video service TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, is laying off hundreds of employees around the world. This decision was made against the background of improving the quality of content moderation through the use of algorithms based on artificial intelligence. The Reuters news agency writes about this, citing its own informed sources.
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The report states that over 700 TikTok employees have lost their jobs in Malaysia. The company confirmed the staff reduction, but noted that the layoffs affected less than 500 people. According to the source, the fired employees were engaged in moderating content on the platform. They were notified of the layoff by email on October 9.
The source also noted that the company intends to lay off even more employees next month in order to consolidate some of its regional operations. “We are making these changes as part of our ongoing efforts to further improve our global content moderation operating model,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement.
Currently, the company employs about 110 thousand people, who are located in offices in more than 20 different cities around the world. When checking content for compliance with the rules of the site, not only moderation by employees is used, AI algorithms are also used for this. In total, the company intends to invest $2 billion this year to improve the security of the platform. Among other things, this includes making moderation more effective. Currently, 80% of content that violates the rules of the site is removed automatically.