As it shifts its focus to a greater use of AI in content moderation, social media platform TikTok announced on Friday ( October 11 ) that it is laying off hundreds of employees from its global workforce, including a sizable portion of its workforce in Malaysia.
More than 700 tasks were slashed in Malaysia, according to two publications with knowledge of the situation. TikTok, owned by China’s ByteDance, after clarified that less than 500 people in the country were affected.
The people, most of whom were involved in the agency’s content moderation functions, were informed of their departure by message late on Wednesday, the resources said, requesting privacy as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
In response to Reuters ‘ questions, TikTok confirmed the cuts and stated that some hundred people were anticipated to experience global repercussions as part of a wider effort to enhance its restraint activities.
To examine content posted on the website, TikTok employs a combination of automatic detection and individual moderators.
ByteDance has over 110, 000 people in more than 200 locations worldwide, according to the company’s site.
One of the options said that the tech company plans to add more layoffs next month as it tries to consolidate some of its local operations.
A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement that” we’re making these changes as part of our continuing efforts to further improve our world working model for material moderation.”