TikTok turns to AI, replacing nearly 500 human moderators

TikTok, owned by ByteDance, is undergoing a huge workforce reduction as it is bumping up its reliance on artificial intelligence to handle content moderation. This one single move just led to the loss of hundreds of jobs globally, including nearly 500 in Malaysia. The affected employees, many of whom were responsible for reviewing content manually, were informed of the decision via email.

So why is TikTok trying to prioritize AI in such a big way? As per reports, the platform is looking to streamline its operations and manage rising volumes of content more efficiently. However, this shift clearly came at a human cost, with dedicated moderation teams seeing their roles eliminated despite contributing to the platform's safety efforts.

Malaysia, where the largest portion of the cuts occurred, has recently doubled down on regulatory scrutiny, especially on social media platforms. The regulations are asking for stronger oversight on harmful content. As a result, TikTok and other platforms seem to be facing mounting pressure to step up their safety procedures while balancing the use of automation and human judgment.