Artificial intelligence is creating an information revolution in the world but also endangering employees: the social media platform Tiktok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, recently announced the layoffs of hundreds of employees as part of a transition to content management by artificial intelligence (AI). Among those laid off is a large number of workers in Malaysia, but the move also affects workers in other places around the world. According to the company’s statement, these changes are intended to improve the effectiveness of control over content uploaded to the platform.
As part of the move, Tiktok announced that it is reducing the workforce involved in manual content moderation, that is, filtering and removing problematic content such as offensive or violent videos. According to reports, about 700 workers in Malaysia received layoff notices, but the company later clarified that the exact number is lower and concerns less than 500 workers. In general, these are layoffs that are happening around the world, with Tiktok predicting that hundreds more will be fired in the coming months as part of an overall plan to strengthen its moderation system.
TikTok, like other social networks, uses a combination of automatic identification technologies alongside human personnel to manage the content uploaded to it. However, the trend of using artificial intelligence in this area is expanding, and TikTok states that currently 80% of content that violates community guidelines is removed by automatic algorithms. At the same time, the company announced that it is investing 2 billion dollars this year in the areas of trust and safety to continue improving its systems.
TikTok’s move is not surprising in the global technology market, where many companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence technologies, which often leads to reductions in manpower. A prominent example of this is Facebook (Meta), which recently announced layoffs due to a transition to automatic solutions in the field of control and security. Google and Amazon also announced during the past year the reduction of manpower due to the introduction of AI systems to manage services and operations that were previously done by humans.
As artificial intelligence continues to develop, it appears that more and more technology companies will switch to using advanced technologies, which may lead to more layoffs in the industry. However, these companies also emphasize the need to invest in human control alongside the use of AI, to ensure that the new technology operates in a fair and safe manner.
The increasing use of artificial intelligence in content management is not limited to social media platforms, but also in areas such as customer service, technical support and even journalism. This is part of a wider trend that is reshaping the world of work, with traditional roles being replaced by advanced technologies that aim to improve efficiency, but also pose new challenges on the occupational level.