TikTok Fires 150 Employees, Replaced by AI
Content Moderation Team Employee Cuts at TikTok
TikTok has laid off 150 employees who are part of the content moderation team in its Berlin office. Their positions will be replaced by an AI-based moderation system and contract workers from abroad. The employees affected by these layoffs come from the Trust and Safety division, which has a total of around 400 employees. With a reduction of 150 people, this figure is equivalent to a 40 percent reduction in the overall workforce in the office.
This mass layoff sparked protests from workers. The union representing TikTok Berlin employees, namely ver.di, is trying to negotiate with the company. Ver.di’s spokesperson for the Berlin-Brandenburg region, Kalle Kunkel, said the union had sent TikTok a list of demands. These demands include asking the company to provide adequate severance pay and extend the notice period for layoffs to one year. However, these negotiation efforts have not produced results. According to The Guardian’s report, TikTok refused to negotiate with the union.
Reason for Layoffs: Efficiency and Focus on AI
TikTok spokesperson Anna Sopel explained that the layoff decision was aimed at “streamlining workflows and increasing efficiency”. He emphasized that employee reductions will not affect the quality of content moderation in Germany. The company remains committed to maintaining the security and integrity of the platform as always.
The content moderation team in Berlin is tasked with ensuring platform security by moderating, assessing and removing content that violates company policies. The types of content managed include violent material, pornography, hate speech, the spread of misinformation, and content that has the potential to harm children. Every day, a moderator can review up to 1,000 videos from a total of 32 million active users on the German market. This process is supported by AI technology to speed up reviews.
This employee cut is said to be in line with TikTok’s strategy to focus more on the use of AI in content moderation. The company argues that AI can remove infringing content more quickly than human moderators. In addition, AI can also reduce the workload of human moderators who have to review dangerous videos, which can affect their mental health.
Criticism from Experts and Unions
However, the reasons given by TikTok have received criticism from digital policy experts. Aliya Bhatia, senior policy analyst at the Center for Democracy and Technology, said that replacing human moderators with AI actually increases the risk of dangerous content getting through filters. AI is considered not to have the ability to differentiate the level of violation that makes content worthy of removal or warning.
Kunkel also criticized TikTok’s decision, because according to employees, the AI system was not fully optimal. For example, AI once classified a Pride flag video as dangerous content, even though it should be safe. On the other hand, AI has also passed inappropriate content that should have been removed.
Layoffs Not the First Time
The layoff of 150 employees in Berlin is not the first time. In recent months, TikTok has made cuts to its Trust and Safety teams in various countries. In September 2024, the company laid off the entire moderator team in the Netherlands, with the number of affected employees around 300 people. Then, in October 2024, TikTok cut around 500 employees in Malaysia and replaced them with AI. Layoffs were carried out again in February 2025, where Reuters media reported that most of the employees in the Trust and Safety team in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa were laid off.
What is concerning is that all these layoff decisions come after TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew, promised to increase the budget for the Trust and Safety team. In testimony before the US Congress in 2024, he stated that the company budgeted more than 2 billion US dollars for a team of more than 40,000 people. A TikTok spokesperson also said that the company would invest another $2 billion in the same team in 2025.
Layoff Trends in Global Technology Companies
It seems that many global technology companies are taking steps to cut workforce in the Trust and Safety team. Reports say that companies such as Snap Inc., X, and Meta (parent of Facebook and Instagram) are also making similar cuts. Employees on the team will reportedly be replaced by an AI system. For example, Meta plans to replace 90 percent of employees working on the company’s product reviews with AI. Platform X was also informed that it would stop its human fact checking program and replace it with notes from other users (community notes).
