You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Is X trying to scare you into spending money?
The timing is suspicious. Halloween is only a few days away, so there’s a chance this is X’s idea of a spooky joke. However, the company hasn’t said anything to back that up.
If the hand is a genuine attempt to sell more promoted posts, I’m not sure it will work. Even people who were already planning to pay for more reach might change their minds once a ghostly finger starts following them around the compose screen.
So, who should we blame for the hand?
That’s the tricky part. Nikita Bier walked away from X in August, close to a year after taking charge of its product team. Then, on Monday, Peter Sellis announced that he is X’s new product chief. Whether the hand is the work of the new product chief is still a mystery, and X hasn’t explained what’s going on.
Until we get answers, the best thing you can do is ignore the pointing finger and post as usual. If it’s a Halloween prank, it should disappear once the holiday passes. If it’s here to stay, X may soon discover that creeping out users is a strange way to win over their wallets.
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