Al Jazeera International, a major global news organization, is shutting down its San Francisco office, home to its social media arm, AJ+, and moving it to Washington. The move will affect all 68 employees who work at the site.

AJ+ is an online publication that reached millions of viewers on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Its office at 118 King St. will close around the end of September, Al Jazeera said in a letter to the California Employment Development Department.

Employment terminations are expected to begin Aug. 5, the letter to the state said. Abderrahim Foukara, assistant secretary of Al Jazeera International, confirmed that AJ+ will be moving to Washington, but did not elaborate. It is unclear how many employees from San Francisco will make the move.

The office at King Street was the former headquarters of Current, a cable channel backed by former Vice President Al Gore and legal services entrepreneur Joel Hyatt. Gore and Hyatt sold the channel to Al Jazeera in 2013. Current was notable for its 2008 partnership with Twitter, which had the channel display tweets alongside broadcasts of that year’s presidential and vice presidential debates, one of the first major intersections of social media and politics. The channel also aired “The Gavin Newsom Show,” a talk show hosted by the lieutenant governor of California, now a candidate for governor.

Al Jazeera has more than 70 bureaus around the world, Argentina to Turkey to Iraq.

In San Francisco, AJ+ initially focused on building an audience on Facebook through short videos that explained topics ranging from politics to social issues.

But in 2016, after not getting the audience response it wanted for its Facebook videos — which were often shot in the field and required a major investment of time and resources — AJ+ turned its focus to YouTube, where viewers tended to watch longer, according to a November report by industry publication Digiday.

Facebook announced major changes to its News Feed this year that now prioritize posts from friends and family over material from publishers and other businesses. Facebook warned content creators that they might see traffic and reach decrease as a result.

AJ+ has 11 million followers on Facebook and about 468,000 subscribers to its YouTube channel, where it continues to regularly post videos.

Trisha Thadani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tthadani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @TrishaThadani