TikTok is reportedly laying off employees in its trust and safety unit, which handles content moderation, as part of a global restructuring effort. The job cuts come amid increasing scrutiny, with the company facing potential bans in various countries.
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Adam Presser, the operations head of TikTok who oversees the trust and safety unit, sent a memo to staff on Thursday informing them of the layoffs. The job cuts began the same day for teams in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, two of the sources added in the report.
TikTok Ban
The layoffs come as TikTok’s future hangs in the balance. The popular short video app, which is used by nearly half of all Americans, was temporarily unavailable last month, just before a law took effect on January 19 requiring its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to either sell the app due to national security concerns or face a potential ban.
In January of last year, TikTok CEO Shou Chew appeared before Congress alongside Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and other tech and media leaders. During the hearing, lawmakers criticised the companies for not adequately protecting children from the growing threat of sexual predation on their platforms. In response to questions from Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, Chew stated that TikTok would invest over $2 billion in trust and safety initiatives.
Layoffs At TikTok
This is not the first time that the social media firm is laying off employees, in October of last year, TikTok laid off hundreds of employees from its global workforce, including a significant number in Malaysia, as part of its shift towards increasing the use of AI in content moderation. The company claims to have 40,000 trust and safety professionals across the globe.