TikTok “sacrificing online safety” with mass AI-driven job cuts

Trade unions and some of the UK’s highest profile online safety campaigners have called on MPs to urgently investigate a proposed wave of over 400 job cuts from TikTok’s London office.

The redundancies are targeted at the ‘Trust and Safety Team’, which is responsible for protecting users and communities from harmful online content – including deep fakes, toxicity and abuse.

In an open letter to Chi Onwurah MP, Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, online safety campaigners along with TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak and CWU General Secretary Dave Ward say the committee must investigate and examine the implications for UK online safety and workers’ rights.

Letter signatories – which include prominent online safety campaigners such as Ian Russell, Adele Zeynep Walton and Alice Hendy MBE – warn that up to 30 million TikTok users (including an estimated 1 million children under the age of 13) are at risk without safety-critical staff working in content moderation.

The letter comes after plans announced in August said that 400 members of staff in its London office would be made redundant, with their roles being reallocated to offices across Europe and outsourced to third-party providers.

The CWU said the cuts were announced just eight days before workers were due to vote on union recognition with the United Tech and Allied Workers. The letter says:

There is no proper business case for making these redundancies …

… TikTok’s revenues are booming — with a 40 per cent increase for the UK and Europe alone.

Yet the company has decided to cut corners. We believe this decision is an act of union-busting — at the cost of workers’ rights, user safety and the integrity of online information.

In an interview with The Independent, CWU national officer John Chadfield said:

If TikTok took online safety seriously, then instead of a short-sighted offshoring move that endangers their biggest userbase in Europe, they should actually invest time and resources in to understanding the expertise and processes required to effectively moderate the millions of pieces of dangerous content that flood the platform, and in that process acknowledge and appreciate the existing frontline professionals in Trust and Safety already in their employ.