TikTok is preparing to lay off hundreds of staff in London responsible for content moderation and security, just as the UK’s new Online Safety Act comes into force, the Financial Times reported. The law compels tech companies to prevent the spread of harmful material or risk fines of up to £18mn or 10 per cent of global turnover.
Employees in the Chinese-owned group’s trust and safety department were informed by email on Friday that “moderation and quality assurance work would no longer be carried out at our London site,” as the company moves to automate more processes using artificial intelligence. Several hundred roles in the UK and across South and South-East Asia are now at risk, with the company launching a collective consultation process as part of a global restructuring.
“The proposed changes are intended to concentrate operation expertise in specific locations,” the email said, adding that advances in large language models were reshaping TikTok’s approach to content safety. A town hall was scheduled for affected employees later in the day.
The Communication Workers Union (CWU) estimates that around 300 people are employed in TikTok’s London trust and safety team, with most expected to be impacted. “They don’t want to have human moderators, their goal is to have it all done by AI,” said John Chadfield, a national organiser at the CWU. “AI makes them sound smart and cutting-edge, but they’re actually just going to offshore it.”
The layoffs coincide with the first enforcement phase of the Online Safety Act, which requires age verification for accessing harmful material and swift removal of dangerous or illegal content. TikTok has introduced “age assurance” tools but, like other platforms such as Meta and YouTube, is relying heavily on machine-learning to infer a user’s age — systems that have yet to receive approval from UK regulator Ofcom.
The move also reflects TikTok’s broader effort to consolidate European operations. Earlier this month, the company announced it would shut its Berlin moderation hub, while concentrating resources in Dublin and Lisbon.
Despite the restructuring, TikTok’s UK and European revenues continue to climb. Accounts filed this week showed revenue rose 38 per cent in 2024 to $6.3bn, while pre-tax losses narrowed to $485mn from $1.4bn the year before.
TikTok said in its filing: “We remain steadfastly committed to ensuring there are robust mechanisms in place to protect the privacy and safety of our users.”
