In a significant shift towards AI-driven content moderation, ByteDance, the company behind the popular video-sharing platform TikTok, has reportedly laid off hundreds of human content moderators worldwide. According to Reuters, the majority of the approximately 500 job cuts were in Malaysia. While ByteDance employs over 110,000 people globally, the company stated that these changes are part of its “ongoing efforts to further strengthen our global operating model for content moderation.”
Currently, TikTok utilizes a combination of human and AI moderators, with machines handling about 80% of the work. ByteDance has committed to investing $2 billion in its trust and safety initiatives in 2024. The layoffs come at a time when ByteDance is facing increased regulatory scrutiny, particularly in light of a surge in harmful content and misinformation on social media platforms this year.
Meanwhile, Instagram, another social media giant, has also been grappling with content moderation issues. Instagram head Adam Mosseri revealed that a recent wave of user account suspensions, post downranking, and spam flagging was caused by errors made by human moderators rather than the company’s AI system. Mosseri explained that the moderators were making decisions without the necessary context, leading to these mistakes. However, he acknowledged that the issue wasn’t entirely the fault of the human moderators, as a “tool we built broke,” limiting the context provided to them.
Over the past few days, users on both Instagram and its sister platform Threads have experienced account lockouts and subsequent disabling for allegedly violating age restrictions. These restrictions prevent users under 13 from creating accounts, and according to The Verge, even after users provided age verification, their accounts remained locked. While Instagram’s PR team initially disputed Mosseri’s explanation, stating that not all issues were related to human moderators, they confirmed that the age verification issue is still under investigation.
