The company promises a staff restructuring
In an attempt to mitigate safety concerns out of China, TikTok has announced that it will rely more on Chinese moderators to treat international content. On the contrary, according to the Wall Street Journal, will take on new staff coming from abroad.
The popular video sharing apps has become a real phenomenon in the world and someone says he is concerned by the Chinese origins of the company to which it belongs. In fact, the Beijing company Bytedance could operate in the interests of Xi Jinping government following a dangerous trend already started by other illustrious compatriots, including Tencent and WeChat.
Bytedance it says quite foreign to the accusations and to ward off suspicions of espionage, has begun to relocate a large portion of the operating team TikTok making it more autonomous and independent from the influences of Chinese moderators.
More than 100 ex-moderators will be redistributed and, although no planned layoffs, some may voluntarily leave the company because of this restructuring, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. In principle, their task was to report potentially dangerous content for users, but often over-flowed zeal in censorship (as also happens on social western media).
"We are working to find alternative places within the company for employees based in China," said the spokesman of TikTok Josh Gartner, who then points out that in reality several Western countries had already moderators "localized" ad hoc as those in the US.
But it is not the first time that TikTok and Bytedance are involved in controversy over security. Until a few months ago they had to defend themselves against accusations of violating laws on child privacy acquiring and disseminating information of its 500 million global users.
To avoid falling further under scrutiny (and pay very salty sanctions), TikTok has announced the opening of a transparency center at its headquarters in California, scheduled for May 2020. There will be visible to all the experts how they now form the moderators and implements its privacy practices.
It is therefore hoped that the previous secrecy on business policies, such as those on the publication of ads and targeting data, will finally be put aside in favor of a system more suited to Western norms approach.
The popular video sharing apps has become a real phenomenon in the world and someone says he is concerned by the Chinese origins of the company to which it belongs. In fact, the Beijing company Bytedance could operate in the interests of Xi Jinping government following a dangerous trend already started by other illustrious compatriots, including Tencent and WeChat.
Bytedance it says quite foreign to the accusations and to ward off suspicions of espionage, has begun to relocate a large portion of the operating team TikTok making it more autonomous and independent from the influences of Chinese moderators.
More than 100 ex-moderators will be redistributed and, although no planned layoffs, some may voluntarily leave the company because of this restructuring, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. In principle, their task was to report potentially dangerous content for users, but often over-flowed zeal in censorship (as also happens on social western media).
"We are working to find alternative places within the company for employees based in China," said the spokesman of TikTok Josh Gartner, who then points out that in reality several Western countries had already moderators "localized" ad hoc as those in the US.
But it is not the first time that TikTok and Bytedance are involved in controversy over security. Until a few months ago they had to defend themselves against accusations of violating laws on child privacy acquiring and disseminating information of its 500 million global users.
To avoid falling further under scrutiny (and pay very salty sanctions), TikTok has announced the opening of a transparency center at its headquarters in California, scheduled for May 2020. There will be visible to all the experts how they now form the moderators and implements its privacy practices.
It is therefore hoped that the previous secrecy on business policies, such as those on the publication of ads and targeting data, will finally be put aside in favor of a system more suited to Western norms approach.
