Inside TikTok: ‘The company does not value any of their workers... there was no compassion’

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Tiktok News

Tech-Lay-Offs

Interviews with multiple TikTok employees based in Dublin have revealed concern over the fairness and transparency of the redundancy process at the social media giant

Employees who spoke with The Irish Times did so on the condition of anonymity, as they were not authorised to speak publicly about the company. Photograph: Sebastien Bozon/AFP via Getty Images’s 200,000sq ft Grand Canal Dock office, that something was amiss. Still, the company’s announcement on February 19th was met with collective shock.

TikTok said that restructuring would allow the company to “further enhance our quality assurance processes”, and said that supporting affected employees was a priority. In early 2020, as the video-sharing platform approached two billion mobile downloads worldwide, TikTok established its EMEA trust and safety hub in Dublin.

“They were hiring like crazy, 2020, 2021”, says a senior staff member in the trust and safety department. Employees worked remotely at first, and as coronavirus restrictions eased, moved into WeWork spaces based in the south inner city. “We had a meeting last year, around February, that everything fine with us ... we shouldn’t worry,” one staffer said.Twice-yearly performances reviews became the subject of controversy within the company last year following allegations that managers were being pressurised by TikTok to assign low grades to employees.

Separately, in November 2023, employees in the training and quality team were asked to complete a policy proficiency test. In a moderation task, employees were asked to label a queue of 100 videos according to a specific policy employed by the company to moderate material posted to the app. “The way that they sold it was that they’re just trying to see how people’s levels of quality and policy knowledge,” one senior staffer says. “Everyone was told that it doesn’t matter how you do, you can’t fail, there’ll be no repercussions, nothing will happen to you.”

At the town hall meeting, TikTok’s plans for restructuring were unveiled by the company. A letter sent to training and quality employees after the meeting, seen by The Irish Times, confirmed that their jobs were at risk of redundancy. On March 14th, those at risk of redundancy were informed of their fate. In the region of 300 employees were told that their employment was “potentially” the subject of termination “by reason of redundancy”, according to a letter seen by The Irish Times.

One employee, who was directly involved in discussions with the company during the redundancy consultation process, says that the company was not receptive to many of the suggested amendments to the selection criteria, or the proposed severance package.

 

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