A former TikTok employee accused the company of bullying, harassing, and breaking the union. Science, climate and technology news
“There were numerous instances of bullying, harassment, and expulsion from both teams and projects.” There were many things going on.”
For the first time, former TikTok employee Linda Auzer is speaking out to expose an environment of bullying, harassment, and union busting at one of the world’s largest social media companies.
“I was having a hard time sleeping at night; I had flashbacks, felt tired, and lost motivation,” she tells Sky News.
Along with three of her former colleagues, she is now launching legal action against TikTok. This is the second court case that former UK employees of the video app have faced in recent months.
Linda began her tenure at the company as a moderator and later transitioned to a quality control role, overseeing the work of external agency moderators.
At first, he enjoyed the work and found it rewarding.
However, she was later assigned to a workflow that handled some of the most extreme content posted on TikTok.
“You don’t want to see children being sexually abused; you don’t want to see women going through all kinds of abuse; you don’t want to see people harming themselves […] using abusive words throughout the day.”
“It made an impact on me.”
Linda says that, despite the type of content she was seeing daily, there was not enough support in place to keep moderators safe and ensure they could effectively moderate TikTok’s content.
TikTok asks moderators to take breaks.
TikTok provides breaks when needed and also offers a mental health support forum.
But Linda and other moderators at Sky News recently spoke to say that, in practice, they did not feel supported.
Instead, they felt pressure to work faster and harder, no matter how disturbing the material was.
AI monitors you all day long, she asserts.
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Other moderators at the company have already told Sky News about allegations that they are under constant surveillance and feel pressured.
Linda says, “Moderators feel pressured to deliver, so they have to step up, even if you see something that really moves you and you feel like you’ve got tears in your eyes.”
“Sometimes you cry but then you continue to work because you have to reach those goals. If you don’t, it will impact not only your bonus but also your job security and salary.
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She says that pressure has a direct impact on the safety of the user.
When you make mistakes and your speed is off under pressure, it means that things that shouldn’t be on the platform are still there.
“It’s not good for the moderators; it’s not good for the users of the platform.”
According to its latest transparency report, TikTok eliminates over 99% of harmful content before users even report it.
According to data collected for the EU’s Digital Services Act, it has the lowest error rate and highest accuracy rate among all major social media platforms.
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After two years at TikTok, Linda joined the United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW) union and became a union representative. She started to experience bullying and harassment, which she attributed to her union membership.
“It took me a few months to recognise this pattern.”
She says that, as well as facing ostracism and bullying, her performance was downgraded from the highest possible rating to the lowest—but even after she lodged a complaint, she was not given a proper explanation as to why.
“Other employees who previously had no problems reported that I helped recruit people to become members of the union, and then I started experiencing the same pattern myself.”
TikTok whistleblowers highlight security concerns
When TikTok launched a major restructuring program last year to change the way it moderates content, Linda’s team were told they were at risk. Of the 24 people at risk of redundancy, 11 lost their jobs.
According to the lawsuit, all of them were openly involved in union activity on TikTok.
Stella Carrom, head of legal at Foxglove, is helping represent the former employees in the legal case.
“In this case specifically, we want compensation for the workers. They have been unlawfully dismissed because they were involved in union activities,” he told Sky News.
“We wanted to make the situation an example because we’ve seen a lot of this happen around the world.”
TikTok told Sky News: “We strongly reject these baseless and false claims.
“We have made continuous improvements to our security technologies and content moderation, as evidenced by the record rate of infringing content removed by automated technology (91%) and the record amount of infringing content removed in less than 24 hours (95%).”
UTAW’s Eleanor Payne said: “TikTok workers in London have been unionizing for three years and aren’t going to stop.
“TikTok has once again been caught using unlawful redundancies in a futile attempt to prevent workers from unionising for a stronger voice at work.
TikTok can play union-busting whack-a-mole all it wants, but ultimately, it’s a losing game. UTAW members know that by remaining united they will ultimately prevail.”
