How an 8-year-old’s YouTube account and a parent activist sparked a debate in Denmark on Google’s ubiquity in schools and its handling of children’s data (Morgan Meaker/Wired)

Morgan Meaker / Wired:
A look at Botometer, which claims to identify the likelihood that a Twitter account is a bot and has been cited by Elon Musk’s lawyers in the Twitter lawsuit  —  In the battle over Twitter’s future, the number of bots on the platform is a key issue.  Problem is, nobody knows how to count them.

Morgan Meaker / Wired:
A look at the fake online traffic business, as some ad exchanges look the other way and advertisers are embarrassed to admit they purchased fraudulent inventory  —  Botmasters have created a Kafkaesque system where companies are paying huge sums to show their ads to bots.  And everyone is fine with this.

Morgan Meaker / Wired:
Sources: Twitter only has one staff left on a team dedicated to removing CSAM after layoffs, despite Musk saying removing child exploitation is top priority  —  Just one person remains to enforce the company’s ban on child sexual abuse content across Japan and the Asia Pacific region.

Miles Kruppa / Wall Street Journal:
Activist investor TCI, which has a $6B+ stake in Alphabet, calls on the company to aggressively reduce headcount and cut costs in long-term bets such as Waymo  —  Hedge fund says company would be more efficient with fewer employees  —  Activist hedge fund TCI Fund Management called …

Helen Li / Wired:
A look at the fintech startups serving small and large US-based cannabis retailers in an industry dominated by cash, as Visa, Mastercard, and others steer clear  —  In dispensaries, cash is king—and it’s a nuisance for business owners and buyers.  Fintech players are entering the fray.

Sarah Lamdan / Wired:
A book excerpt details how companies like RELX and Thomson Reuters collect and sell user data, exploiting a lack of privacy laws as regulators focus on Big Tech  —  Google and Facebook’s privacy violations are common knowledge.  But the decisions of a less-known company, Relx, are also impacting people’s everyday lives.