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TikTok slashes 100s of jobs in AI shift; as internal documents show traffic trumps safety
by AFP Staff Writers
Kuala Lumpur (AFP) Oct 12, 2024
Social media platform TikTok said it will slash hundreds of jobs, with a significant number of employees in Malaysia expected to be affected, as the company shifts to AI-assisted content moderation.
TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, said Friday it would cut several hundred jobs around the world, without providing a breakdown by country.
Less than 500 jobs in Malaysia are expected to be affected by the move.
A TikTok spokesperson said that the job cuts were part of an effort to boost content moderation.
“We expect to invest $2 billion globally in trust and safety in 2024 alone and are continuing to improve the efficacy of our efforts, with 80% of violative content now removed by automated technologies,” the spokesperson said in a brief statement.
The company uses a combination of human moderators and automated detection to review content posted on the platform.
The restructuring follows months of speculation that TikTok was planning to significantly reduce its global operations and marketing workforce.
According to the company website, ByteDance has over 110,000 employees based out of more than 200 cities globally.
The layoffs also come as tech giants face increased regulatory pressure in Malaysia, where a surge of malicious content on social media was reported earlier this year.
The government of the Southeast Asian country has since asked social media platforms to apply for an operating licence in an effort to tackle rising cybercrime, including online fraud, sexual crimes against children and cyberbullying.
Internal TikTok documents show prioritization of traffic over well-being
New York (AFP) Oct 11, 2024 –
TikTok teams identified harmful effects of its platform on young users but limited preventive measures so as to avoid a drop in traffic, according to internal documents revealed Friday by a US public radio station.
The documents, mentioned in a subpoena issued by the Kentucky attorney general, are part of a lawsuit filed by 13 states and Washington D.C., accusing TikTok of harming young users’ mental health.
The papers reveal TikTok’s awareness of its platform’s appeal and its recommendation algorithm, which offers a seemingly endless chain of short videos.
One unnamed TikTok executive noted the need to be “cognizant” of the app’s impact on “sleep, and eating, and moving around the room, and looking at someone in the eyes.”
Kentucky Public Radio reconstructed the internal communications before a state judge ordered the documents removed from the public record.
The lawsuit claims TikTok’s research found that after viewing 260 videos, a user likely became addicted to the platform.
The company’s studies also correlated “compulsive usage” with negative mental health effects, including “loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety.”
While TikTok has implemented features to limit young users’ screen time, including parental controls and a one-hour timeout, the documents suggest ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, did not seek to improve these tools despite knowing their limited effectiveness.
A TikTok project manager wrote, “Our goal is not to reduce the time spent” on the platform.
In response, TikTok called the publication of sealed court information “highly irresponsible.”
“Unfortunately, this complaint cherry-picks misleading quotes and takes outdated documents out of context to misrepresent our commitment to community safety,” it said.
The state lawsuits come as the popular video-snippet sharing app faces a ban in the United States if it remains owned by China-based ByteDance.
The US government alleges that TikTok allows Beijing to collect data and spy on users. It also says TikTok is a conduit to spread propaganda. China and the company strongly deny these claims.
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