26 September 2026 · Twitter Ban Service · 15 min read
How to get rid of bots on Twitter, and remove bot followers without losing real ones
Sort each bot by what it does before choosing a fix. Silent bot followers come off through Remove this follower, which X still lists as web-only. Like and reply bots get blocked and filtered out of notifications. Only bots that copy you, pitch you in DMs or arrive with reports against you need a report to X.
Why do bots follow me on Twitter, and why do they come in batches?
Following is the cheapest move on X, and a list of real people to follow is what lets a fake account pass for a person.
Every account can follow up to 400 others a day under X's follow-limit rules, and X has kept following free even while charging for other actions. In its "Not A Bot" test, which began on 17 October 2023 for new web accounts in New Zealand and the Philippines, posting, liking and replying cost $1 a year, while accounts that declined to pay could still read and follow. A follow costs a bot nothing and drops it into your notifications. Follow it back and it gets something better, because X's following FAQ says an account you follow is able to send you Direct Messages.
Batches have a plainer cause. X's follow rules list "duplicating another account's followers, particularly using automation" as abusive following, so the tactic is common enough to have a name, and its usual form is an operator pointing a set of fresh accounts at the audience of one profile. You get followed because you are in that audience. Most "twitter bots following me" threads on Reddit describe the result. On 15 June 2026 one r/Twitter user watched a public profile go from 32,400 to 33,100 followers in six hours; about 90% of the newcomers had been created that month, had zero followers and shared a name and photo theme, and the same thing had happened a few times in May. A batch looks uniform because somebody built it in one sitting.
X removes batches too, and lately it has said so in public. On 24 July 2026 Nikita Bier, X's head of product at the time, posted that the company had found "42,000 accounts automating replies using chatbots and have removed them from the platform", adding that engaging with users "without a human in the loop runs counter to our mission." Sweeps like that are why bot followers can vanish as fast as they arrived.
They also explain the opposite complaint, a follower count that falls overnight. When X locks an account, the same FAQ says, "we remove them from follower counts across profiles globally", so every profile the bot followed loses one at the same moment. PiunikaWeb reported on 9 April 2026 that some accounts had lost over 20,000 followers during that month's purge. None of it waits for a user to report anything; the EU figures gathered in the report-to-ban timeline show how little of X's spam enforcement starts with one.
How to get rid of bots on Twitter by what each one does
Pick the fix from the behaviour, not from the word "bot". An account that only follows you costs you a slightly inflated number. One that wears your name costs your followers money.
Start at the top. The first two rows cover most of what people want gone, and neither needs X to act, so a spam report there only joins a queue X's own systems already work through. Rows three and four break rules a reviewer can check: X's automation rules, updated in April 2026, say you "may not like posts or hide replies in an automated manner" and that "sending automated replies to posts based on keyword searches alone is not permitted." Report those one post or conversation at a time, with the steps in the guide to reporting a single tweet, and switch to a report on the whole X account when the profile exists only to spam. Row five gets the last section of this page, because it is a different problem with different evidence.
How to remove bot followers on Twitter when the app hides the button
Use a web browser. X's help page on following still says that removing an account from following you "is available on web only", and that was the wording when we checked it on 26 September 2026.
How to remove bot followers on X from x.com, on a computer or in your phone's browser:
- Sign in at x.com and open Followers from your profile.
- Find the account and select the three-dot More icon to the right of its Follow button.
- Choose Remove this follower, then confirm with Remove.
- Already on the bot's own profile? The same option sits in its More menu.
Removal is quiet, and the bot can undo it. The same help page warns that a removed account can follow you again if your posts are public, or send a request if they are protected, and nothing stops it liking or replying in the meantime. That makes removal the right tool for silent followers and the wrong one for anything that keeps coming back. Inside the app, where the button is missing, block the account and unblock it straight away: a block ends the follow in both directions, so the unblock leaves you where Remove this follower would have. That is how to get rid of bot followers on X from a phone without opening a browser.
X's help pages describe no bulk option, so how to get rid of bot followers on Twitter by the hundred comes down to your own time or an app's access, weighed in the checker section below. A fresh account is no shortcut. The old one sits in a 30-day queue before it is erased, as deleting a Twitter account permanently explains, and a new profile posting about the same things draws the same batches. If what you really want is the handle a dormant bot is sitting on, removing it from your followers frees nothing; claiming an inactive username on X is its own, slower process.
How to block bots on Twitter, and what a blocked bot still sees
Block anything that comes back after removal, and anything that likes, replies or messages. According to X's blocking page, a blocked account cannot follow you, engage with your posts, send you Direct Messages, add you to its Lists or tag you in a photo, and it gets no notification that you blocked it.
- Open the bot's profile and select the three-dot More icon, or use the same icon at the top of one of its posts.
- Select Block from the menu.
- Confirm with Block.
What it can still do is read. When we compared that page with the following FAQ on 26 September 2026, we saw that the two disagree. The FAQ says a blocked account "will not be able to see any of your posts", while the blocking page says that if your posts are public, "accounts you have blocked can see your posts." The blocking page is the current one: X changed how blocks work in November 2024, TechCrunch reported, and the FAQ still carries the older wording. Twitter Ban Service works from the blocking page's version. A block keeps a bot's hands off your posts rather than its eyes, and only protected posts hide them from it, which suits a bot fine, since the engagement was the point.
How to spot a bot on Twitter with X's own numbers
Check the profile against limits X publishes about itself. A person can reach any of these slowly. Bots reach them fast, and several at once.
| What you see on the profile | The X rule behind it | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| A following count stuck at or just past 5,000, with few followers | Every account can follow up to 5,000; after that, more follows depend on its follower ratio | It followed for volume and ran into X's ratio wall |
| Hundreds of near-identical replies in one day | Unverified accounts are limited to 50 original posts and 200 replies a day | An account going far past that is almost certainly verified, so its check mark says nothing about a human |
| Replies landing seconds after you post "support" next to a wallet name | Automated replies based on keyword searches alone are not permitted | It breaks a written rule, so report the reply as spam |
| A group of followers created the same month, with matching names, photos or banners | Duplicating another account's followers is listed as abusive following | One operator built them together; handle them as a group |
| An "Automated" label under the name | Labelled bots must stay connected to a human-run account | A declared bot with a named manager, not a disguised one |
The daily caps come from X's page on account limits, and the label rule from its note on automated account labels. No single row convicts. Plenty of people never upload a photo, and an eager new user can follow 300 accounts on day one. Two or three rows together, above all the batch pattern, are what give a bot away. The About this account panel adds the join date, country and username history, and Twitter Ban Service's check of mass-report sellers shows what each of its fields adds to a report. A profile borrowing a real person's identity is tested differently: what X treats as a fake account covers where parody stops and impersonation starts, and accounts that pitch money deserve the sharper list in eight signals of a Twitter scammer.
Twitter bots liking my tweets: who is the like for?
You. X made likes private on 12 June 2024, and since then "a post's author can see who liked the post" while other people cannot, TIME reported. A bot's like has one audience, the notification it lands in.
The aim behind it is old. When BleepingComputer documented a wave of porn bots on 2 July 2023, the likes were there "to entice users into viewing the profiles of these bot accounts" and clicking the links in their bios. The newer version is stranger. A user on r/Twitter asked on 25 August 2026 why recently created accounts with default photos, near-empty timelines and no links kept liking their posts. Twitter Ban Service reads a liker with no link as an account being aged: small, human-looking activity now makes it look older when it is sold or put to work later, and trading or selling account access is itself banned under X's Authenticity policy.
Filters handle this better than blocks. X's notifications page says the quality filter, on by default for new accounts and reinstalled apps, keeps "content that appears to be automated" out of your notifications. Advanced filters go further and can mute notifications from accounts that are new, use a default profile photo, have no confirmed email or phone number, or that you don't follow. When your own account suddenly gets a lot of attention, X may even drop a prompt into the Notifications tab suggesting those filters. Block the likers that persist, and report one only when its profile sends people somewhere harmful.
How to stop bots from following you on Twitter, and the part you can't stop
On a public account, the follow itself can't be stopped. Protecting your posts is the only setting that turns each new follow into a request, and X's following FAQ lists the price: only approved followers see your posts, and they stop appearing in search engine results. For anyone who posts in order to be found, that is too much to pay for tidiness.
The better answer to how to stop bots on Twitter is to shut what a follow opens:
- Don't follow strangers back. A follow-back is the step that gives a bot a route into your Direct Messages.
- Check your message settings. Accounts you don't follow can message you only if you accept requests from everyone, or from verified users when they are verified, X's Direct Messages page says, and some new accounts start with requests already switched on. The Requests tab has its own quality filter, on by default in the apps, which hides likely junk without notifying you.
- Limit replies on posts that draw keyword bots. X's reply settings include an "Only verified accounts" option. In a Gizmodo test published on 6 September 2023, a post asking for MetaMask support drew a scam reply within seconds and eight more within minutes, and a wallet name next to the word support is still classic bait.
Most of the rest is X's job. From 23 February 2026, PiunikaWeb reported, most tiers of X's developer API could post a reply only when the original author had mentioned or quoted the replying account; Enterprise and public-utility apps were exempt. In May 2026 an anti-spam system Bier promoted as "Iron Slopdome" began refusing actions with the message "This request looks like it might be automated", and long-time users reported being caught by it as well. Neither change needs anything from you.
Is a Twitter bot follower checker worth the access it asks for?
A read-only one can be, if it tells you something the profiles don't. On 29 July 2026 an r/Twitter user with nearly 300 followers asked for exactly this tool, suspecting only 5 were real. Any checker scores the same public signals as the table above, just at scale, so the real question is what you hand over for the scale.
Scale costs the checker money, and that shapes what it sells you. X's API is pay-per-use, with no subscription tier, and on 26 September 2026 its pricing page listed follower reads at $0.010 each. At that rate an outside app spends $100 in API credits to read a 10,000-follower list once. The same read made by your own developer app counts as an Owned Read at $0.001 per follower, or $10. A free, unlimited scan means someone else is paying that bill, or the tool is skipping the API and working through your logged-in session.
Then read the authorization screen. X's developer documentation lists three permission levels for apps: read only; read and write; read, write and DMs. An audit needs the first. A bulk remover asks for the second, because it has to act as you, and no follower job needs the third. X now shows a "Sensitive permissions requested" notice, with a required "I trust this app" checkbox, whenever a pay-per-use app asks for write access or for reading DMs, according to an X Developers announcement from September 2026. Treat that box as the moment to stop and check who is asking.
Extensions that click through x.com for you carry a different risk, and it lands on your own account. X's automation rules forbid "non-API-based forms of automation, such as scripting the X website", warn that it "may result in the permanent suspension of your account", and hold you responsible for "the actions taken with your account, or by applications associated with your account." Type remove bot followers twitter into a search engine and most of what comes back is these apps, each selling the bulk button X doesn't have. Many bundle tweet wiping too, a separate job whose ceilings are set out in what deleting all your tweets can and cannot reach. Anything asking for your password instead of an authorization screen belongs with the free "bot" downloads that harvest logins, a trap with an Instagram twin in Instagram spam report bots.
Skip the tools older guides still name. SparkToro shut its free fake-follower audit after the 2023 API changes, saying in a June 2023 retrospective that it had become "impossible for us to operate any of our free tools", and Botometer now serves archived scores only.
When bots stop being clutter: copies, scam messages and report waves
A bot becomes your problem, rather than X's, once it is aimed at you. Three combinations mark that line, and each has its own route among X's official report forms.
Copies of you
A batch of accounts using your name and photo and following your followers is impersonation, and blocking the copies one by one only hides them from you. X's impersonation form now asks for proof of identity before anything else, and our guide to getting a Twitter impersonator removed goes through it branch by branch. Once the copies are posting in your name, an impersonation report that also clears the tweets handles the posts along with the account.
Scam follow-ups to your followers
Bots that follow your audience and then message it with a giveaway, a job or a "support" link are running scams, which the Authenticity policy bans by name, from trust-building schemes to phishing. Report the messages as well as the profiles; the routes in reporting brigading and job scams on X apply. Bots reposting your photos or videos as bait need a DMCA notice for the stolen work rather than a spam flag, and a fake shop trading on your brand is covered in why counterfeit reports get ignored.
Report waves against your account
New bot followers arriving in the same week as reports or warnings against you is the combination to take most seriously. X's Authenticity policy bans submitting duplicate or false reports "in large numbers" and coordinating others to misuse reporting, yet sellers still market exactly that service. Our pages on whether mass reporting a Twitter account works and on getting someone banned the legitimate way explain why volume is not what X weighs, and the same market runs elsewhere, from Instagram mass-report offers to TikTok report bots. When a swarm amplifies abuse at one person, the thresholds in X's targeted harassment rule decide it, and hate speech on Twitter has a protected-category test of its own.
Twitter Ban Service works on these cases. We map which accounts belong to one operator, save each post with its date, match every account to the rule it breaks, and file through X's own routes, starting from the report category built for each violation. X makes every decision, and no report can promise a suspension; what an X report can actually remove sets out the range, from a label to a suspended account. When one post about you needs to come down rather than a whole profile, a tweet takedown request is the narrower tool. Nobody outside X can delete another person's profile, as who can delete someone else's X account sets out, and taking down a Twitter account lists the routes that do exist. The same case file carries over to an Instagram account takedown, while unmasking the person behind a network for court runs through who you actually sue over X, not the report button.
So clear your own list this week. Remove the silent followers on the web, block whatever keeps returning, and switch the notification filters on. Report only what copies you, scams your followers or turns up alongside reports against you, and if that is happening now, send us the handles and the dates. The rest of our guides to X's rules cover each violation in depth.
Sources checked for this page
- X Help Center: Following FAQs (Remove this follower, locked accounts and follower counts), read 26 September 2026
- X Help Center: Blocking on X, read 26 September 2026
- X Help Center: About following on X (400 a day, 5,000 ratio, abusive following)
- X Help Center: About X limits (posts and replies for unverified accounts)
- X Help Center: Automation rules, updated April 2026
- X Help Center: Authenticity policy, April 2025
- X Help Center: Notifications timeline, quality filter and advanced filters
- X Help Center: Direct Messages and message requests
- X Help Center: Not A Bot test (17 October 2023)
- X Developer Platform: pay-per-use pricing and Owned Reads, read 26 September 2026
- Nikita Bier on X (24 July 2026): 42,000 chatbot reply accounts removed
- TIME (12 June 2024): likes become private on X
- PiunikaWeb (24 February 2026): X API restricts automated replies
FAQ
Twitter spam accounts following me by the hundred: am I being targeted?
Usually not. A batch of new accounts sharing a creation month and a naming theme is one operator working through a list you happen to be on, the pattern X's follow rules call duplicating another account's followers. Treat it as targeting only when something else arrives with it: copies of your profile, scam messages to your followers, or reports against your account.
Can bot followers get my account shadowbanned or suspended?
Not for following you. X's follow rules govern what your own account does: follow churn, indiscriminate following, apps that claim to add followers. A stranger's bot choosing you breaks none of them. If your reach seems to have dropped, check your own account status first, as our guide to Twitter shadowban checkers explains.
Why did an account follow me and then unfollow a day later?
That is follow churn: following large numbers of accounts, waiting for follow-backs, then unfollowing so its own ratio looks better, which X's follow-limit page names as abusive following that can lead to suspension. You don't need to do anything, because not following back is the whole defence.
Will a bot know that I blocked it?
X sends no notification when you block an account. A blocked account finds out only if it visits your profile, where it sees that it has been blocked. X's help pages say nothing about notifying a follower you removed, which makes removal the quieter choice when you are unsure whether an account is a bot or a real person.
Does X have an official bot follower checker?
No. X publishes no tool that scores your followers. The closest it offers is the About this account panel on each profile, which shows the join date, country or region and username changes. Everything else is a third-party app reading the same public signals, through X's paid API or through your logged-in session.
Should I report every bot that follows me?
No. Report the ones that break a rule you can point to, such as a scam link, replies triggered by keywords, or a copy of a real person. X's Authenticity policy treats duplicate reports sent in large numbers as engagement spam, and an account that has only followed you gives a reviewer nothing to test.
Can Twitter Ban Service remove the bot followers from my account?
No, and no honest service should offer to. Removing followers takes your login or an app acting as you, and neither is worth the risk for clutter you can clear on x.com yourself. Twitter Ban Service works on bots aimed at you, such as copies, scam networks and report waves, and files them through X's own reporting routes.