Dutch staffers first to be axed as attention turns to Malaysian office
Life
Image: cottonbro via Pexels
TikTok has now laid off its 280 human moderators in the Netherlands and replaced them with an automated AI system. Globally, this is just the beginning: in other regions, such as Malaysia, hundreds of content moderators will also lose their jobs.
TikTok claims that the use of AI is necessary due to the enormous volume of user content. According to the company, automation leads to greater efficiency, allowing up to 80% of harmful content to be removed automatically.
Researchers and moderation experts have expressed serious concerns about this approach. They argue that AI is not capable of reliably recognising linguistic sensitivities, cultural nuances, or subtle forms of hate speech and disinformation. For example, distinguishing between a missing child alert and images intended for a pedophilic context remains difficult for AI. The use of symbolism such as emojis or code words also poses a challenge. According to critics, the moderation process would be significantly less careful and context-aware without human control teams.
The European Commission has announced that it will critically examine the shift. Due to TikTok’s change, the practice now falls within the framework of the Digital Services Act (DSA), which sets strict standards for transparency and quality of content moderation. EU authorities will collect information on the accuracy of AI moderation and the extent of human oversight.
Emerce