TikTok set to lay off 300 employees in content moderation, trust & safety teams: FT report

TikTok is reportedly laying off hundreds of employees in London, especially in roles dealing with content moderation and security, the Financial Times reported on Friday. The current layoffs would result in a loss of 300 jobs, as per the estimates by the Communication Workers Union.

In an internal mail circulated to the staff, the Chinese-owned company said, “…we are considering that moderation and quality assurance work would no longer be carried out at our London site.” A townhall with the impacted employees is expected to take place today.

The mail added that the proposed changes are in line with the company's focus to “concentrate operation expertise in specific locations,” affecting trust and safety teams across the UK as well as South and Southeast Asia.


Additionally, the FT report emphasised that the ByteDance-owned video platform is looking at “technological advances,” including working on large language models (LLMs).

The development follows the company’s move to replace US-based staff with leaders from China in an effort to replicate TikTok Shop’s success in Asia within the US market, after its American ecommerce arm fell short of a $17.5 billion transaction target.

Meanwhile, the UK’s new Online Safety Act, rolled out earlier this month, has imposed strict requirements on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X, as well as sites hosting pornography, to protect children and remove illegal content.

To comply, TikTok had activated age verification on the platform to limit the exposure of minors to harmful content.

According to Bloomberg, ByteDance is targeting revenue growth of about 20% in 2025 despite a potential global economic downturn, a pace of expansion that could help it match Meta Platform’s global business.