TikTok to replace trust and safety team in Germany with AI and outsourced labor | Technology

Tiktok workers in Germany are strikeing the company’s trust and security team on the collective dismissal. The social media giant said that it plans to remove the entire Berlin supervisory team that removes harmful content from the platform and use it as an outsourcing to artificial intelligence and contract workers. This means the dismissal of 150 employees.

The union representing Tiktok workers, Ver.di, has been trying to negotiate with Tiktok in the last few weeks. Berlin-Brandenburg region for a Verdi spokesman Kalle Kunkel, the union for employees affected by Tiktok, severance pay and dismissal notification period to extend a request for a year, he said. So far, Tiktok said he refused to come to the table.

Kunkel said, “Basically, they said,” We don’t want to talk to you, “so we’ve done two strikes from now on.” “But they still don’t react to us.”

Berlin employees include the German -speaking market, which the union says it has about 32 million active users. Tiktok has a handful of offices around the country, but the capital generally serves as the largest center with about 400 employees. The dismissal of the trust and security team will be a decrease of approximately 40% in force.

Anna Sopel, a Tiktok spokesman, said that the company’s layoffs are “facilitating and increasing productivity” and ız We are completely dependent on preserving the security and integrity of our platform ”.

In Germany, as in other countries of the world, the trust and security team is responsible for making sure that short form videos published on the platform do not contain harmful content or violate the company policy. This means marking videos for things like violence, pornography, misinformation and hate speech. According to the union, people working on this team review up to 1,000 videos a day. This human work is usually done with AI.

A global edition to replace moderators with AI

Last year, Tiktok cuts worldwide trust and security personnel and usually replaces these workers with completely automatic systems. Company in September He fired the entire team of 300 content moderators In the Netherlands. Tiktok in October, Change approximately 500 Content Inspection Employee In favor of moderation working with AI in Malaysia. Last February, Reuters reported Tiktok revealed significant parts of trust and security teams in Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa.

German layoffs, Tiktok CEO Shou Zi Chew’in 2024 in front of the US Congress in front of a hearing of the company’s confidence and security expenditures, he said. Globally, a team of more than 40,000 people promised to spend more than 2 billion dollars. Spokesman Sopel said that Tiktok has invested more than 2 billion dollars in trust and security this year, but the team did not answer questions about how many employees around the world.

The Chinese company Bayta is faced with a prohibition in the United States unless the government is sold to a government -approved buyer, but Donald Trump gave scoops for several months of the ban.

Snap Inc, which is the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has made deductions in trust and security teams for the last few years, including Snap Inc, X and Meta. NPR announced this in May Meta planned to change 90% of employees Work on product reviews with AI, including those for trust and security. Meta and X also terminated human factorcking programs in favor of other users.

Aliya Bhatia, the senior policy analyst of the non -profit democracy and Technology Center, said, “The assignment of platforms to ensure that they are safe and respect for rights will lead to more mistakes and more harmful experiences,” he said.

Strikes and protests against AI exchange

Kunkel, this study is problematic for artificial intelligence. Tiktok complained that the company’s automatic moderate system classifies videos such as Rainbow Pride Flag, which shows that it shows harmful content that does not violate the company policy. On the contrary, employees said that in their union complaints, AI could skip the real inappropriate issue.

“AI, especially when it comes to sophisticated content, can not really define problem pictures or videos,” Kunkel said.

When it comes to regulating technical platforms and content control, the EU is more strict than other parts of the world. In accordance with the Digital Services Law enacted in 2022, social media companies, including Tiktok, must protect their platforms meticulously or face great fines.

Tiktok says investing in artificial intelligence -supported moderation means to abolish the content that violated before being displayed by people on the social network. The company says technology also helps to reduce the volume of harmful videos that human moderators have to review.

Tiktok, while plans to bend more to AI, says that some of Germany’s confidence and security work will use external resources to some contractors. Kunkel expressed difficulties that these workers, who follow a large amount of graphic content on a daily basis, may not be able to access internal health and safety programs. Tik Tiktok Germany offers mental health resources, Kun Kunkel said, but most of them are not an external contract company.

In order to put pressure on Tiktok to negotiate, the union held a two -day strike and protest in late July. Kathlen Eggerling, chief negotiator for Tiktok employees of Ver.di, said that these actions were necessary to show the value of their staff to the company.

After the first strike, Tiktok employees received a harsh warning. The company sent a message to the workers by Guardian, which said that those who protesters should inform their bosses in advance and ask for permission. Tiktok said in the message that he had reviewed the situation with the law team and that he would reach the workers individually to address the violations.

However, according to German laws, trade unions announce that strikes and workers do not need to inform their employers if they plan to participate.

Egerling may need content moderators to inform Tiktok’s internal communication. “Instead of spreading wrong information, Tiktok should finally come to the negotiation table.”

Union, Tiktok employees will continue to be collected, he said. And if the company does not meet at the bargaining table, it can be a longer term strike in the work.