Editor’s note: Updated with responses from TikTok
ByteDance, the owner of social media TikTok, has laid off more than 500 staffs in Malaysia, local media The Malaysian Reserve reported on Thursday, quoting a source.
A source close to the Malaysian branch of the company told The Malaysian Reserve (TMR) that more than 500 employees were terminated after receiving emails from the company.
It is said that most of the workers are working on content moderation on the platform which are not just limited to Southeast Asia, but other regions as well, the report added.
TikTok employs a combination of automated systems and human moderators to moderate content on its platform, according to the report.
The process is designed to filter out inappropriate, harmful or policy-violating content with TikTok’s artificial intelligence (AI) learning from human moderators through a process known as supervised learning, where human feedback is used to improve the accuracy of the AI’s content moderation capabilities.
TNGlobal’s query to ByteDance has been forwarded to TikTok’s communications department.
In a reply to TNGlobal‘s query, TikTok’s spokesperson said, “We’re making these changes as part of our ongoing efforts to further strengthen our global operating model for 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 percent of violative content now removed by automated technologies,” the spokesperson added.
TikTok has yet to respond to questions on the number of employees terminated at press time.
TikTok’s parent ByteDance plans to invest around $2.13 billion to set up an artificial intelligence hub in Malaysia, according to a report in June, quoting the country’s trade minister.
As part of the deal, the latest in a number of global tech companies expanding into Southeast Asia, ByteDance will also expand its data centre facilities in Malaysia’s Johor state through an additional MYR1.5 billion investment, Investment, Trade And Industry Minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said.
Meanwhile in the same month, it was reported that ByteDance will lay off staff at its Indonesian unit following a deal where it bought a local e-commerce firm and combined it with its TikTok operation. ByteDance did not say how many employees would be affected. Bloomberg had earlier reported there would be 450 jobs cut.
In January ByteDance completed a deal to buy a majority stake in Tokopedia, an Indonesian e-commerce firm, from the GoTo group.
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