On February 28, according to internal sources and a memo sent to employees, TikTok recently underwent a significant restructuring of its management team, with several executives being replaced. These changes include the departure of the head of Trust and Safety, responsible for content moderation, and the takeover of this department by the deputy trusted lieutenant of CEO Zhang Yiming.
Zhang Yiming testified at a congressional hearing in the United States a few weeks ago about TikTok's handling of potentially harmful content for children, expressing his intention to strengthen content moderation, a contentious issue faced by all social media platforms.
According to the memo from TikTok, Adam Presser, TikTok's Chief Operating Officer reporting directly to Zhang Yiming, will take over the leadership of the Trust and Safety department. This means that senior executives in this department will no longer report to ByteDance's General Counsel, Erich Andersen, with Andersen and Zhang Yiming continuing to report to ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming.
Of particular note in this personnel adjustment is the departure of Cormac Keenan, who has been responsible for Trust and Safety operations in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa since joining TikTok in 2020. According to his LinkedIn profile, Keenan was later promoted to an executive overseeing global Trust and Safety affairs. However, he will officially leave on March 22.
Nevertheless, Keenan will continue to serve as a strategic advisor to TikTok, collaborating with the senior leadership team and serving as a non-executive director of TikTok's Irish entity.
On Tuesday, TikTok employees received another message announcing the departure of Rich Waterworth, the General Manager of TikTok's Europe, Middle East, and Africa division, and Theo Bertram, Vice President of European Government Relations and Public Policy. This personnel change comes against the backdrop of the European Commission launching a formal lawsuit against TikTok, aimed at assessing whether TikTok has violated the Digital Services Act, particularly concerning how it manages addiction-related risks.
These departures are not isolated incidents; in fact, TikTok has undergone several leadership changes over the past year. In June of last year, the departure of Chief Operating Officer V. Pappas drew widespread industry attention. Shortly thereafter, former Disney executive Zenia Mucha joined TikTok as Chief Brand and Communications Officer. Presser was then promoted to Chief Operating Officer and was tasked with leading the content team in last fall's organizational restructuring.
In 2023, TikTok underwent a comprehensive reorganization of its business team, hiring executives from Amazon and Meta to replace former business chief Sandie Hawkins, and also made adjustments to its corporate communications team.
