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

11:34 PM PDT · October 26, 2026

Some interface changes and nudges, like bright buttons urging you to subscribe in apps, are mildly annoying but easy to ignore. Others are so in your face that you want to throw your phone in a river. X’s new push to get users to promote their posts is firmly in that category.

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.

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

— Ershad Kaleebullah (@r3dash) October 27, 2026

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

— Dylan Abruscato (@DylanAbruscato) October 26, 2026

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…

— Peter Sellis (@petersellis) October 26, 2026

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.

Topics

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

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.

View Bio