Writers Blog #9

While on social media this week I ran into many issues that I feel are important to a journalism role…

Over the last two weeks, I have traveled to work as a journalist for five races throughout two weekends. On X (formerly Twitter) I found myself running into more issues than usual.

When I’m reporting, I do my best to be one of the first people to break the news… as every journalist does. I became locked out of my X account three times over the course of two weekends.

I do not believe that X or Twitter provided a reason as to why I was locked out, at least I did not see one.

To retrieve your account, you must complete “puzzles” to prove that you are a human. Each time I was given a different puzzle to solve. The worst part is that there can be up to ten parts in a puzzle…

The puzzle with ten parts was not difficult, just tedious. Ten parts? I focus on reporting, not solving puzzles. It frustrates me that I have to take time to complete a puzzle just to prove that I am a human.

Another example of a puzzle that I had to complete was a matching game. Once again, not difficult, just annoying. Thankfully, I passed each puzzle. I do not know what would happen if I were to fail, maybe never get my account back?

I never ran into this issue when X was not under Elon Musk’s supervision, only after. Sometimes I think Musk is doing all he can to drive people away from the app.

Another frustrating issue that exists on X is the amount of p*rn bots. They are everywhere. I try my best to be a professional 20-year-old reporter, how is that possible when p*rn bots reply to my posts about racing?

This was an issue that Musk mentioned that the rebrand to ‘X’ would fix… it only got worse. Not to throw all the shade on X on this topic, Instagram also has a ton of these bots.

I don’t hate the app completely, I appreciate a platform where I can do something I am passionate about. I am aware that everything can’t be perfect. I tend to get annoyed when it is a repetitive issue.

There are many great additions with the rebrand of Twitter such as being able to edit posts, this is extremely helpful when you're typing and you misspell something.

Back when X first was rebranded, Musk had it to where you were limited to only seeing 600 posts per day, thankfully that was removed quickly.

When Threads was released, I hoped it would take over X in popularity and switch roles. It didn't, but with the issues that X brings, that hope still sits with me.

Thank you for listening to my rant… I promise that I am not a fully negative person, I am just trying to do my best to report as professionally as possible.