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By Jordan King
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The head of product for X, Nikita Bier, is facing backlash for a resurfaced comment he made in August, saying that the “most common bot bio” is a Christian one.
In August, Bier wrote: “To be honest, the most common bot bio is: (cross emoji) Christian | (male emoji) Father | (U.S. flag emoji) Love my country.”
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This comment has resurfaced after Elon Musk’s social media company purged around 1.7 million bot accounts “engaging in reply spam” last week.
Multiple conservative-leaning accounts online have shared screengrabs of the August comment with recent posts about last week’s purge, calling it “concerning.”
Why It Matters
The online backlash has ignited debate over the platform's approach to combating automated accounts and the broader issue of online authenticity.
X’s purge now faces scrutiny over perceived political biases and the impact of such efforts on platform transparency.
Newsweek has contacted X, via email, for comment.
What People Are Saying
X continues to grapple with bots and authenticity challenges. On October 12, X announced it had purged 1.7 million bot accounts in an effort to improve platform engagement and reliability.
Bier’s August comment has now resurfaced with multiple people making similar posts to writer ANTUNES (“Antunes1), followed by major MAGA figure Matt Gaetz, who posted a screengrab of it next to Bier’s more recent announcement about “purging bots” with the caption: “This is concerning.”
An account called R****d Finder (@IfindR****s), followed by Gaetz, Musk and conservative commentator Michael Knowles, said: “The head of product at X thinks Christian, patriotic fathers are bots. Now I'll be blocked and nuked, worth it.”
Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon shared this post and said: “Or he identified actual bots and found that many of them use that bio.”
Christian conservative account Sovey (@sovey_X) said: “Proud Christian. It’s the first word in my bio for a reason.”
Babylon Bee Managing Editor Joel Berry said: “This is one of the X employees fighting the bot problem, and you shouldn’t be surprised if this is true.
“American Christian fathers are the group every evil movement on the planet wants to infiltrate, subvert, and destroy. Of course we would be a major target for bots.”
Who Is Nikita Bier?
Nikita Bier is a viral app designer and entrepreneur recently appointed as the head of product at X earlier this year. Bier is recognized in the tech world for founding the teen-focused apps Gas and TBH, which were acquired by Discord and Facebook, respectively, according to MediaPost. These platforms gained millions of users in a short time span and are frequently cited as case studies in viral marketing.
His appointment at X follows a public campaign in which he messaged X owner Elon Musk in 2022, offering to help transform X into a leading platform for messaging, group collaboration and content creation.
Bier has since stated that his focus will be on leveraging X’s AI chatbot Grok to "create hyper-relevant timelines" and "help people understand everything that's happening." Bier also developed a prototype for Grok as part of his application process, highlighting his product development skills.
What Happens Next
The public scrutiny over both Bier's comments and the ongoing bot crackdown at X illustrates the complexities involved in moderating large-scale digital platforms. As X rolls out new AI-driven moderation and authenticity tools, the company and its leadership are likely to face continued debate over the balance between effective moderation and perceived viewpoint neutrality.
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