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Anti-Union TikTok Accused Of Bullying And Neglecting Mental Health Of Moderators
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For the first time, a former TikTok worker has spoken publicly about what she describes as a culture of bullying, harassment and union busting inside the social media giant. ers i
The toll upon the mental health of their employees, does not take any priorities and sackings are a weekly occurance. The company may have mental health safeguarding, such as rrest breaks; but this is only on paper and not the reality for those who are exposed to violent, pornogrpahic images, not to mention abusive images of children and adults.
One employee and union member, Ms Ouazar, is now launching legal action against TikTok alongside three former colleagues. It is the second court case brought by former UK employees against the company in recent months.
“There was lots of bullying, harassment, exclusion from the team, from projects. A lot of things were going on.” Former employee Lynda Ouazar told Sky News she experienced serious mental health difficulties during her time at the company. “I was finding it really hard to sleep at night, having flashbacks, feeling tired, losing my motivation,” she said.
She joined TikTok as a content moderator before moving into a quality control role, reviewing the work of external agency moderators. Initially, she said she found the job rewarding, but later she was assigned to review extreme and distressing content.
“You don't want to see children being sexually assaulted, you don't want to see women going through all kinds of abuse, you don't want to see people self-harming, [...] using swaer words all day long. It affected me.”
Ms Ouazar said there was insufficient support in place to protect moderators’ wellbeing, despite TikTok’s stated policies encouraging breaks and offering access to a mental health support platform. She said moderators instead felt under constant pressure to meet targets. “You are monitored by AI all day long,” she said.
“Moderators find themselves pressurised to deliver, so they have to carry on, even if you see something which really affects you and you feel like you have tears in your eyes. Sometimes you cry but then you carry on working because you have to reach those targets. Otherwise, your bonus will be affected, your job security, your salary, everything will be affected.”
According to Ms Ouazar, that pressure risks undermining platform safety. “When you work under pressure and you are under speed and you make errors, it means that things that should not be in the platform are actually still there. “It's not good for the moderators, it is not good for the users of the platform.”
TikTok’s latest transparency report states that more than 99% of harmful content is removed before being reported. Data gathered for the EU’s Digital Services Act also shows TikTok has the lowest error rates and highest accuracy rates among major social media platforms.
“It took me some time, I would say a few months, to see the pattern.”
She said her performance rating was downgraded from the highest to the lowest level without a clear explanation, even after raising a grievance. She also alleged that other workers she helped recruit to the union experienced similar treatment.
When TikTok restructured its content moderation operations last year, Ms Ouazar’s team was told they were at risk of redundancy. Of 24 employees affected, 11 lost their jobs. According to the legal claim, all had been openly involved in union activity.
Stella Caram, head of legal at Foxglove, which is representing the former workers, said: “In this case specifically, we want compensation for the workers. They have been unlawfully dismissed because they were engaging with union activities. “We wanted to make this a precedent because we've seen a lot of this happening across the world.”
TikTok denied the allegations, telling Sky News, in a tone of denial which is so common amongst tech companies:
“We strongly reject these baseless and inaccurate claims. “We have made ongoing enhancements to our safety technologies and content moderation, which are borne out by the facts: a record rate of violative content removed by automated technology (91%) and record volume of violative content removed in under 24 hours (95%).”
Eleanor Payne from UTAW said:
“TikTok workers in London have been unionising for three years and aren't about to stop. TikTok have once again been caught using unlawful redundancy in a futile attempt to stop workers unionising for a stronger voice at work. TikTok can play union-busting whack-a-mole all they like but, ultimately, it's a losing game. UTAW members know that by sticking together they'll win in the end.”
Source: Sky News
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Designed: Chris Ingram, Jamie McGovern |
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After two years at TikTok, Ms Ouazar joined the United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW) union and became a union representative. She said this marked the point at which she began to experience bullying and harassment.