TapTechNews October 11th news, this morning, Reuters quoted two informed sources as saying that ByteDance has laid off more than 700 employees from its Malaysian branch, because the company will focus on using AI more widely for content review.
Source pointed out that most of the affected employees are engaged in content review work and received the dismissal notice by email on Wednesday night. TikTok confirmed this round of layoffs today, but did not provide the specific number of affected employees in Malaysia.
The company expects that hundreds of employees around the world will face layoffs, which is part of a larger plan aimed at optimizing the review process. TikTok reviews the platform content by combining automated technology and manual review.
Source also said that ByteDance plans to conduct more layoffs next month to integrate the operations in some regions.
A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement: These adjustments are to continuously enhance the global content review operating model. The company expects to invest 2 billion US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 14.161 billion Chinese yuan) in the global trust and safety field this year and plans to further improve efficiency. The spokesperson said that currently 80% of the violating content is deleted by automated technology.