X is nudging users to promote their posts with a pointing hand, and people are confused

Over the last 24 hours, a growing number of users have posted that a mysterious hand pointing to the “promote” button suddenly showed up while they were writing a post. This has irked people across the board.

With Halloween around the corner, it could be a prank meant to spook users, though X hasn’t said so. And even users who wanted to promote a post and spend money might be scared off after seeing the hand.

I just went to write a tweet and a massive hand popped up pointing to the promote button 😵‍💫 pic.twitter.com/cLPP5pNaNP

Why is there a man pointing on my screen?!?! pic.twitter.com/CXhfXVKZLH

what the hell is this? jesus christ please never do this again twitter pic.twitter.com/uRFBha7Vhl

I was going to post and this arm came out of nowhere to point at the promote button. LOL WHAT. pic.twitter.com/4Iicq5tKoK

WTF @elonmusk, if I wanted jump scares I would've watched a horror movie instead.

P.S. this hand popped out of nowhere and conveniently when the words "engagement farming" are in the tweet. pic.twitter.com/NWxt81AYie

TBPN podcast’s president Dylan Abruscato said that this engagement trick was the “most Nikita-coded thing I’ve ever seen,” a nod to the growth tactics associated with Nikita Bier, X’s former head of product.

I was just about to post when this huge, in-your-face arm popped up pointing at the promote button (yes, this is a real screenshot)

The most Nikita coded thing I’ve ever seen. So obstructive, yet so effective pic.twitter.com/TOI2puhliO

Bier left the platform in August after almost a year at the helm. On Monday, Bier’s former boss and ex-head of product for Snap and Discord, Peter Sellis, posted that he has taken over as X’s product chief.

I’m joining the team at @X to lead Product.

I am a huge believer in @SpaceX's mission to extend human consciousness to the stars, so it’s time to make shitposting multiplanetary.

X is the best way to find out what’s happening in the world right now and talk about it. The team…

It’s unclear if the hand is Sellis’s doing. We have reached out to X for a comment, and will update our story if we hear back.

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Ivan Mehta

Ivan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web.

You can contact or verify outreach from Ivan by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at ivan.42 on Signal.

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