PETALING JAYA: Social media platform TikTok has confirmed having laid off several hundred staff in the country as part of its global workforce reduction.
In a statement, the company however pointed out that exact figures could not be issued given varying local employment regulation processes around the world, adding that it anticipates the exercise will impact “several hundred people” globally.
Additionally, a TikTok spokesman told Business Times, the company plans to invest US$2 billion (RM4.29 billion) globally in trust and safety initiatives throughout this year, focusing on improving the efficiency and impact of its content moderation efforts.
“We are making these changes as part of our ongoing efforts to further strengthen our global operating model for content moderation.
“We expect to invest US$2 billion (RM8.5 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 was quoted as saying by the English business daily.
The latest development comes on the heels of an earlier announcement that the company owned by Chinese firm ByteDance had terminated the services of “hundreds of employees” in its Malaysian office.
It is learnt that more than 500 individuals were relieved of their employment after receiving emails from the company.
The majority of the employees who were laid off were working on content moderation on the platform.
In June, ByteDance had announced plans to invest RM10 billion in Malaysia to establish the country as a regional hub for artificial intelligence.
