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 (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:
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  —  An 8-year-old’s YouTube snafu—and one unlikely parent activist—sparked a nationwide debate on the tech giant’s ubiquity and handling of children’s data.

Jay Peters / The Verge:
The FTC and seven US states settle with Google and iHeartMedia, requiring the companies to pay $9.4M for allegedly paying radio hosts for deceptive Pixel 4 ads  —  Google and iHeartMedia are settling with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and seven state attorneys general for allegedly paying radio hosts …

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.

Lauren Goode / Wired:
Match Group plans to add profile verification to Hinge in November, asking users to provide a video selfie, aiming to crack down on scammers  —  To combat the scourge of fake accounts, the dating site will ask users to prove their humanity by capturing a video selfie.

Platformer:
Sources: on December 11, Twitter briefly blocked traffic from ~30 mobile carriers, mainly in the Asia-Pacific region, in an attempt to rid Twitter of spam  —  PLUS: Why it’s time to start leaving Twitter behind  —  On Sunday, Elon Musk tweeted a vague warning: “the bots are in for a surprise tomorrow.”