Police and other sources say Block’s Cash App has become one of the primary payment tools for sex traffickers, including due to lax user ID rules (Thomas Brewster/Forbes)

Adele Peters / Fast Company:
GiveDirectly and Google.org are using AI mapping and satellite imagery to find low-income hurricane survivors in Puerto Rico and Florida and send cash payments  —  Storms worsen inequality.  These $700 cash payments can help lessen the blow.  —  After a disaster like Hurricane Ian …

Alexandra S. Levine / Forbes:
At Code, CEOs and politicians voiced concerns about TikTok’s power, rapid growth, and surveillance potential, with some calling for it to be banned altogether  —  At the Code Conference in LA, tech and media CEOs and politicians all expressed concerns about the Chinese-owned app — as a competitor, and as a national security risk.

Emily Baker-White / Forbes:
Web novel apps backed by ByteDance and Tencent are running hundreds of Facebook and Instagram ads showing sexual assault, violent erotica, and acts of self-harm  —  Some of the ads include descriptions of sexual violence, paired with images of battered women and photos of male fitness influencers, which were used without permission.

Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes:
An investigation shows how self-publishing platform Wattpad’s lack of moderation, age verification, and safety features helps sexual predators exploit teens  —  For many teenagers, the reading and writing platform is a creative and educational outlet.  But a Forbes investigation found …

Drew Harwell / Washington Post:
Sen. Wyden reveals CBP told Congress it is adding data from ~10K travelers’ devices per year to a database, accessible to 2,700 officers without a warrant  —  Contacts, call logs, messages and photos from up to 10,000 travelers’ phones are saved to a government database every year

Alex Heath / The Verge:
Sources: at an all-hands, Elon Musk said Twitter is done with layoffs and actively recruiting for roles in engineering and sales; Twitter has 2,700+ employees  —  After purging nearly two-thirds of Twitter’s 7,500-person workforce in three weeks, Elon Musk is hiring again.