ByteDance Begins Massive Layoffs

On December 30th, according to sources, ByteDance started to cut thousands of workers and described the process as “optimization” of the business. ByteDance intended to lay off about 10% of its employees from many of its products, such as Toutiao, Douyin, Lark, TikTok, the service platform of used car Dongchedi, and across divisions including R&D, new product, product operations, etc. There are voluntary and involuntary layoffs. Among the involuntary layoffs, some people were forced away by vicious competition. Douyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok, is one of the most downloaded apps in Communist China and has already laid off its staff. Shortly before that, Tencent, another big tech company, also began another round of job cuts. From a global perspective, seven U.S. tech giants laid off 90,000 workers in 45 days from early October to mid-November. The global economic turbulence will only impel widespread layoffs.

TikTok is a spy software owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to collect user data from Western countries and is considered a high risk to users due to a number of security risks, for example, interfering in local elections. Currently, many countries have banned TikTok. It also has been banned from electronic devices managed by the US House of Representatives recently. ByteDance’s massive layoff in Communist China probably indicates that the CCP had stopped its sponsorship for the company.