According to the Financial Times, TikTok is preparing to lay off hundreds of employees working in content moderation and security in London. The move comes as the UK's Cybersecurity Law comes into full force, requiring international tech companies to block the spread of dangerous content or face hefty fines.
On Friday morning local time, British employees in TikTok’s trust and safety department received an email. "We are considering no longer carrying out auditing and quality assurance work in our London office," the email said, as the company hopes to use AI to automate this aspect of the work.
TikTok said that as part of the global reorganization of content review work, hundreds of positions in the company's trust and safety team in the UK and South and Southeast Asia may be affected, and the company has launched a collective labor consultation process.
"The proposed adjustments are intended to focus operational expertise in specific regions." The email stated that TikTok will hold an all-hands meeting with affected employees on Friday morning.
TikTok also noted that "technological advances such as improvements in large language models are reshaping the way we work."
The Communications Workers' Union (CWU) estimates that around 300 people work in TikTok's London Trust and Safety unit, the majority of whom will be affected.
The job cuts come just weeks after key provisions of Britain's landmark Cyber Security Act came into force. The law requires businesses to verify the age of users trying to access potentially harmful content. To comply with new regulations and limit access to harmful content for users under 18, TikTok launched new “age verification” controls last month.
The rise of AI
Similar to other social media companies such as YouTube and Meta, TikTok said it plans to rely on machine learning technology to "guess" a user's age based on how they use the platform and who they interact with. However, these AI-based systems have not yet been approved by regulator Ofcom. Currently, Ofcom is assessing whether the AI system complies with the regulations.
Right now, TikTok is focusing on reducing or closing local moderation teams in various markets and concentrating related work into regional hubs such as Dublin and Lisbon. TikTok also announced this month the closure of its trust and safety team in Berlin as part of a global reorganization.
TikTok said: “We are continuing the reorganization we initiated last year to strengthen the trust and safety department’s global operating model, which includes concentrating our operations in fewer regions to ensure we can maximize efficiency and speed, and continue to improve this function that is critical to the company with the help of technological advancements.”
CWU national organizer John Chadfield pointed out: "They are trying to completely replace human auditors with AI, although the actual approach at this stage is to move operations to areas with lower labor costs. AI makes their approach sound high-end, but in fact they are just outsourcing operations overseas."
The layoffs come as TikTok’s revenue in the UK and Europe continues to soar. According to the latest financial data disclosed this week, TikTok’s revenue in the UK and Europe in 2024 will increase by 38% year-on-year to US$6.3 billion, while pre-tax losses narrowed from US$1.4 billion in 2023 to US$485 million last year. The data comes from UK regulatory filings and covers TikTok's operations in the UK and Europe.