How to Stop Follow Bots on Twitch

Whether you already stream or plan on streaming, you will likely face following bots at least once during your career.

Follow bots are essentially fake followers which target individual channels – often with hateful messages. This creates a bad experience for the Twitch streamer and everyone in the stream chat.

So how do you stop them? It isn’t straightforward, as Twitch has no way to prevent them. 

So I’ve created a guide with tips and tricks on what steps you should take if you spot your channel flooded with follow bots and how to use a tool to remove bots quickly and efficiently!

What Exactly Are Follow Bots, and Why Are They a Nuisance?

Follow bots refer to scam bots that flood a creator’s channel to follow them all at once. They are a nuisance to all Twitch users – from the creators to the viewers.

Since most content creators have notifications and sound alerts on their stream when someone follows, it can quickly become overwhelming and stressful when hundreds of offensive bot names pop up in your Twitch streams. 

Your real Twitch followers may begin to question what is happening or even leave the stream, which could very well be the nail in the coffin for your stream career if you are a new streamer.

And not only do they artificially boost the number of followers, the fake followers often use offensive names. 

Besides giving you a fake follow with an offensive name, these follow bots can also send hateful messages into the chat (also known as Twitch hate raids), creating an environment detrimental to you and your audience.

Read more on how to stream privately on Twitch.

Who’s behind the fake bots, and why are they even a thing?

I don’t know who coded the bots. But since there’s so much toxicity on the internet, it’s no wonder someone would find a way to harass at scale effectively.

Sometimes the bots (and other types of harassment) result from a rival streamer who might envy your follower numbers or the latest sponsored deal they might have wanted.

Other times, they target specific demographics based on gender or race.

Sadly, female streamers playing video games have had to deal with online harassment for a long time. The same is true for people of color.

Other times though, the bots seem to attack random live streamers.

In that sense, the bots reflect the shortcomings of man that already exist in society. But in the digital domain, a single village idiot can suddenly hurt many innocent beings.

Another reason they might exist is to lure new streamers into paying for fake viewers – fx to grow your channel quickly and try to secure sponsorship deals based on fake view counts.

I have seen this many times – from fake paid website visits to Instagram and YouTube followers. Don’t get sucked into the scam!

There’s no shortcut to success. You must put in the time and work to build an audience by creating valuable content. That’s the best way to secure new followers.

Bots hurt everyone!

Do Twitch punish you for being botted?

No, you don’t have to fear getting punished if you’re flooded with Twitch follow bots.

Twitch already knows about these malicious users and annoying followers. And they violate the Twitch terms of service and community guidelines.

But on the other hand, they will not do much to keep you and your community protected from them.

So what can you do when you are being booted?

What to Do When Being Botted

So, you have been botted, and you freeze up, not knowing what to do.

Spam, hateful messages, and names are flying left and right, and everything is in disarray. 

Real viewers are asking you what is happening. Potential viewers leave because of the bots, and the stress increases. 

Here’s a bit of advice:

1. Stay calm and take a few deep breaths first.
2. If you know who has botted you, take a screenshot of their account/messages they sent you to send to Twitch.
3. Take screenshots of the bots spamming your channel.
4. Inform your real viewers what is happening.
5. At the very least, go offline for a few minutes to give the bots time to move on and stop targeting you.
6. If you have a discord for your channel, let everyone know what happened and when you will be back online.
7. File an official report with Twitch, including your screenshots, when the bot raid occurred, and any other information Twitch needs.

Once everything is under control, you must remove those bots from your follower list. 

While you may be tempted to leave them if they aren’t causing you more trouble, removing them is a good idea so your account is not banned for artificial engagement.

Removing Follow Bots From Your Follower List

Now comes the more tiring part of being follow botted: removing all the bots from your follower list. 

Luckily, though, a third-party tool was created that allows creators to remove followers from their channel quickly and efficiently. 

The tool is called Commander Root’s Follower Removal Tool and works by connecting to your Twitch account to access your follower list. 

Follow the steps below to use it to remove any bot followers you have from a bot raid. 

Bot Removal (Individual Accounts)

1. Login into the follower removal tool with your Twitch account.
2. It will ask you to authorize access to your channel’s data. Hit accept (otherwise, the tool can not grab your follower list to search for bot accounts.)
3. A list of all your followers will appear at the bottom of the screen, with red arrows on the right-hand side.
4. Click the red arrow to bring up three options.
5. Select “Remove Follow and Block User From Re-Following.”

Now that account can never again follow you, but if you got spammed by hundreds of bots, using this method will take far too long. 

Thankfully, this follow-removal tool allows you to filter followers by the date they followed you when their account creation date, and, best of all, you can filter your followers by Known Bot Account. 

Follow the steps below to filter your followers by known bots, then mass blocks them from your account. 

Bot Removal (Mass Bot Accounts)

1. Login to the follower removal tool with your Twitch account and authorize it.
2. Filter your follower list by “Followed at between” and put in the date when you were follow botted.
3. If it happened in the past and you are unsure of the exact date, click “Show More Stats” next to the “Total Followers” section above the follower list to show the dates you gained many followers.
4. Change the “Known Bot Account” filter to “Yes” to have only the bot accounts that followed you show up.
5. Click “Remove All Followers Listed Below” and select “Remove Follow and Block User From Re-Following.”

Voila! All of the bot accounts that followed you are instantly removed and blocked. 

If you would like to do general regular cleanups of your follower list and get rid of any bots that are present, you can turn on the “Known Bot Account” filter for your entire follower list. 

Conclusion

Being follow botted is never fun – especially not if it’s because of hate raiders – and it can make your attempt to grow a Twitch channel even more difficult.

Stay calm and use the tips and Twitch tools provided here, you can fight back against the spam bots.

If you found this article helpful, check out how to set up your Twitch sound alerts. Until next time, happy gaming!

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FAQ

What is Follow Botted vs. View Botted?

Follow botting and view botting are slightly different because while follow botting is when your account is spammed with follows, view botting is when bots join your channel merely to raise your view count. 

You can typically tell when this is the case because they will say nothing more than “nice stream” or something along those lines. 

The only real way to deal with view bots is to take your channel down for a few minutes and bring your stream back online. 

Can I Purchase Bots for My Own Channel to boost my Twitch views?

Technically yes, if you wanted to, you can find view bots and other fake engagement offers online, but you should never get them! 

Many of them are scams, and the others could very well lead to Twitch banning your account since Twitch does not allow artificially boosting viewer counts or when you use fake engagement. 

It is better to work to get real engagement, even when you have very little, rather than inflating your stats with fake accounts.

Fewer real viewers are infinitely better than having hundreds of fake bot accounts because you will have no true community and will be unlikely to make any money from your stream. 

Can You Prevent Future Follow Bot Raids?

Unfortunately, there is no real way to prevent future follow-bot raids since Twitch does not have any security protocols in place for that. 

The best thing you can do is to work with your moderators if you have them and have a raid protocol in place. 

Your raid protocol should:

• Switch your chat to subs only
• Turn on a scene without notifications enabled
• Let your viewers know what is happening
• Clear the chat and recent alerts

Streamlabs is great for this because they recently added a “Safe Mode” option that you could use to enact multiple actions at once in case of something like a follow-bot raid.