Some interface changes and prompts, such as eye-catching buttons in the app urging you to subscribe, are annoying but still easy to ignore. Others feel so overtly aggressive that they make you want to throw your phone into the river. X’s new initiative to encourage users to promote posts clearly falls into the latter category.
Over the past 24 hours, an increasing number of users have posted that, while writing their posts, a mysterious hand suddenly appeared next to the "promote" button, pointing at it. This has upset users across the board.
As Halloween approaches, this could also be a prank meant to scare users, but X has not indicated this. Even users who originally intended to promote their posts and were willing to pay might be deterred upon seeing this hand.
TBPN podcast host and president Dylan Abruscato said this interactive approach is “the most Nikita-style thing I’ve ever seen,” referring to growth strategies associated with Nikita Bier, former product lead at X.
Bier left the platform in August after nearly a year in the role. On Monday, Peter Sellis, Bier’s former supervisor and former head of product at Snap and Discord, posted that he has taken over as head of product at X.
It is still unclear whether this hand is from Sellis. We have reached out to X for comment and will update the report if we receive a response.