Tiktok will replace the moderation team from a European country with artificial intelligence

Tiktok employees in Berlin are on strike because of mass redundancies, in the context of the company's global efforts to replace the moderators with IA.

Tiktok Belin employees went out. Photo: Verdi Union

Tiktok employees in Germany are organizing strikes because of the mass shares of the company moderation team. The Social Media giant said he intends to abolish the entire moderation team in Berlin, which eliminates the harmful content on the platform, and outsourcing the activity to artificial intelligence and contractual workers. This means the dismissal of 150 employees, writes The Guardian.

The union representing Tiktok employees, Ver.di, has insisted in recent weeks to negotiate with Tiktok. Kalle Kunkel, the spokesman of Ver.Di for the Berlin-Brandenburg region, said the union sent Tiktok a list of requests for dismissal for affected employees and the extension of the notice period to one year. So far, he said, Tiktok has refused to sit at the negotiation table.

“Basically, they told us:” We do not want to talk to you “, so then we organized two strikes”, Kunkel said. “But they still do not react to our steps. ”

Berlin employees cover the German -speaking market, which, according to the union, has about 32 million active users. Tiktok has a few offices throughout the country, but the capital is the largest center, with about 400 employees in total. The redundancies of the trusted and safety team there would be a reduction of the staff by almost 40%.

Anna Sopel, Tiktok spokesstreamline workflows and improve efficiency ” and that “We remain fully dedicated to protecting the safety and integrity of our platform ”.

In Germany, as in other countries around the world, the reliable and safety team has the task of ensuring that the short videos published on the platform do not contain harmful content and do not violate the company's policy. This means signaling videos containing violence, pornography, misinformation and instigating speeches. According to the union, the members of this team examine up to 1,000 videos per day. This human work is often done in collaboration with Ia.

A global initiative to replace moderators with Ia

In the last year, Tiktok has reduced the personnel responsible for safety and confidence worldwide, often replacing these employees with automated systems. In September, the company fired the entire team of 300 content moderators in the Netherlands. In October, Tiktok announced that it will replace about 500 employees responsible for moderating Malaysia content with a moderation system based on artificial intelligence. In February last year, Reuters reported that Tiktok dismissed a significant part of his trusted and safety teams in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Germany dismissions come after Tiktok CEO, Shou Zi Chew, said in a US Congress in 2024 that the company will increase expenses for trust and safety. He committed to spending over $ 2 billion for a team of over 40,000 people globally. Sopel, the spokesman, said Tiktok is investing another $ 2 billion in confidence and safety this year, but has not answered questions about the current number of team employees worldwide.

Tiktok, which is owned by the Chinese company Bytedance, is experiencing a ban in the US, unless it is sold to a buyer approved by the Government, although Donald Trump has given several delays of several months after the ban.

Other social media companies, including Snap Inc, X and Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram, have also made discounts in their reliable and safety teams over the past two years. In May, the NPR revealed that Meta intended to replace 90% of the employees dealing with the evaluation of her products, including those responsible for trust and safety. Meta and X have also ceased their programs to verify the facts by people, in favor of the notes of other users.

“The replacement of persons pregnant with ensuring the safety of platforms and respecting the rights of all users, including minors, will lead to more harmful mistakes and experiences”said Aliya Bhatia, senior political analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a non-profit organization that studies the automatic moderation of content.

Strikes and protests against replacement with Ia

The outsourcing of this activity to Ia is problematic, Kunkel said. Tiktok employees complained to the union that the automatic moderation system of the company has classified videos that show things like the rainbow flag as being a harmful content, which does not violate the company's policy. Instead, the employees said in the trade union complaints that it can skip the truly inadequate content.

“AI is not able to truly identify problem images or videos, especially when it comes to sophisticated content.”Kunkel said.

The EU is stricter than other parts of the world when it comes to regulating technological platforms and moderation of content. In accordance with the Law on digital services, adopted in 2022, social media companies, including Tiktok, are obliged to rigorously protect their harmful content platforms or to face large fines.

Tiktok states that investment in artificial intelligence moderation means the possibility of eliminating the content that violates the rules before it is viewed by the users of the social network. The company claims that this technology also contributes to reducing the volume of harmful videos that human moderators are obliged to examine.

Although Tiktok intends to rely more on Ia, the company states that it will continue to outsource some of the activity of assurance of confidence and safety in Germany to contractors. Kunkel has expressed concern that these workers, who watch large quantities of graphic content daily, may not have access to internal health and safety programs. Tiktok Germany offers resources for mental health, Kunkel said, but most external contracting companies do not.

In order to exert pressure on Tiktok for negotiations, the union organized two days of strikes and protests at the end of July. Kathlen Eggerling, the main negotiator of the VER.DI for Tiktok employees, said these shares were necessary to show the company the value of his staff.

After the first strike, Tiktok employees received a severe warning. The company sent the employees a message, seen by Guardian, saying that those who protest during the work schedule must announce their bosses beforehand and request leave. Tiktok said in the message that he analyzes the situation with his legal team and that he will contact the employees individually to address the violations.

However, according to the German law, the unions announce the strikes, and the employees are not obliged to inform their employer if they intend to participate.

“It seems that Tiktok may need content moderators to verify internal communications. We ask the management to cease to intimidate the strikes,” Eggerling said. “Instead of spreading misinformation, Tiktok should finally sit at the negotiation table.”

The union said Tiktok employees will continue to mobilize. And if the company does not appear at the negotiation table, a longer term strike could be organized.