If you’re wondering “why are bots following me on Twitter?” you’re not alone. Bots and spam accounts are a common problem on Twitter (now called X). They inflate follower counts, distort engagement, and can even harm your account credibility.
Research suggests that anywhere from 15% to 64% of Twitter accounts may be automated, with some studies estimating bot activity as high as 80% during election seasons. That’s why it’s important to know how to remove bot followers on Twitter and prevent them from coming back.
That’s why it’s important to know how to remove bot followers on Twitter and prevent them from coming back. In this guide, you’ll learn why bots follow you, how to get rid of them, and what steps you can take to stop bot followers from cluttering your account.
Why Do Bots Follow Me on Twitter?
Before we jump into removal methods, let’s quickly look at why bots target your account in the first place:
- Spam promotion: Bots often follow in hopes that you’ll see their spammy posts or links.
- Fake engagement: Some bots follow random people to make their own accounts look more “real.”
- Data scraping: Automated scripts follow to gather information about users.
- Random targeting: Bots sometimes follow accounts at random just to appear active.
- Algorithm manipulation: Bot networks follow specific accounts to influence Twitter’s “For You” feed and promote content they want viral.
If you’ve noticed bots following you on Twitter in large numbers, don’t ignore them. They make your audience look fake, hurt trust, and can damage engagement rates. When half your followers are bots, your true engagement percentage looks much worse than reality.
If you’ve noticed bots following you on Twitter in large numbers, don’t ignore them. They make your audience look fake, hurt trust, and can damage engagement rates.
How to Identify Bot Followers on Twitter
Before removing bot followers, you need to know how to spot them. While bots are becoming more sophisticated, several telltale signs remain consistent.
Common Signs of Bot Accounts
No profile picture or default image: Most bots use the default egg profile picture or generic stock images instead of real photos.
Generic or nonsensical usernames: Look for usernames with random strings of numbers and letters like “user12345678” or “marketing_bot_2024.”
Empty or vague bios: Bot accounts typically have no bio, or their bio contains generic phrases, excessive emojis, or promotional links to suspicious websites.
Suspicious follower-to-following ratio: Bots often follow thousands of accounts but have very few followers themselves. A ratio like 5,000 following but only 20 followers is a red flag.
Little to no original content: Check their timeline. Bots rarely post original tweets and instead continuously retweet or like content in repetitive patterns.
Posting at odd hours or too frequently: Bots post at unusual times (3 AM every day) or tweet dozens of times per hour, which is unnatural for real users.
Repetitive or automated replies: If you see the same generic comment posted to multiple accounts (“Great post!” or “Check this out!”), it’s likely a bot.
Recently created accounts with high activity: New accounts that immediately follow thousands of users and post excessively are often bots.
Engagement doesn’t match follower count: An account with 10,000 followers but only 2-3 likes per tweet is suspicious.
Manual Bot Checking Process
Want to manually verify if an account is a bot? Follow these steps:
- Click on the suspected account’s profile
- Review their bio, profile picture, and username
- Scroll through their recent tweets and retweets
- Check their follower-to-following ratio
- Look at their account creation date and activity patterns
- Check if they engage in actual conversations or just spam
While manual checking works for small follower lists, it becomes impractical when you have hundreds or thousands of followers to review.
How to Remove Bot Followers on Twitter (X)
1. Remove Followers Manually
Twitter/X allows you to remove followers without blocking them:
- Go to your profile.
- Tap Followers.
- Find the suspicious account.
- Click the three-dot menu and choose Remove this follower.
This is the simplest way to keep your follower list clean.
2. Block Spam Accounts
If bots keep following you on Twitter, blocking is a stronger option:
- Open the bot’s profile.
- Tap the three dots.
- Select Block.
This ensures the account cannot follow or interact with you again.
3. Report the Account
When you see obvious spam or bot activity:
- Open the account.
- Select Report.
- Choose the option for “Spam” or “Fake account.”
Reporting helps Twitter/X identify and remove bad actors from the platform. When multiple users report the same bot account, Twitter takes action faster to suspend or permanently ban the account.
4. Use Third-Party Bot Removal Tools
For users dealing with large numbers of bot followers, manual removal becomes time-consuming. Several trusted third-party tools can help automate the process.
4. Use Tools Carefully
Some people use third-party apps to mass unfollow or block bots. While they can help, be cautious, unsafe tools can risk your account. Stick to trusted apps or do it manually to stay safe.
Circleboom Twitter (Recommended)
Circleboom is an official Twitter/X partner, making it one of the safest bot removal tools available. It offers comprehensive features for identifying and removing fake followers:
Key Features:
- Identifies fake, spam, inactive, and overactive accounts
- Provides detailed follower analytics and authenticity scores
- Allows bulk removal of bot followers
- Offers whitelist features to protect genuine accounts
- Shows follower demographics and engagement patterns
How to use Circleboom:
- Log in to Circleboom Twitter and connect your account
- Navigate to the Followers tab in the left menu
- Select filters like “Fake/Spam” or “Inactive”
- Review the identified accounts
- Remove them individually or use bulk removal options
Important: Once the removal process begins, don’t close your Chrome browser or the Circleboom tab until it completes, as this will stop the automated process.
X Bot Remover (Chrome Extension)
X Bot Remover is a Chrome extension specifically designed to automate bot follower removal with adjustable detection rules:
Key Features:
- Analyzes follower activity and profile signals
- Checks follower/following ratios and posting patterns
- Scans bio keywords and country signals
- Includes username blacklist/whitelist functionality
- Offers “Dry Run” mode to preview before removal
How it works:
- Install the X Bot Remover extension from Chrome Web Store
- Open your followers page (x.com/YOUR_USERNAME/followers)
- Launch the extension and adjust parameters in Extension Options
- Set detection criteria (inactivity periods, default profile pictures, bio keywords)
- Run the removal process
The extension automatically identifies likely bots based on your configured rules and removes them from your followers list.
Other Bot Detection Tools
FollowerAudit: Analyzes follower authenticity and provides quality scores. Free plan allows checking accounts with under 5,000 followers (2 audits per day).
TwitterAudit: Scans your Twitter account, analyzes followers, and provides quality scores for identifying fake, inactive, or bot accounts.
Safety Considerations for Third-Party Tools
While third-party tools can help, be cautious:
✅ Use only trusted apps: Stick to tools that are official Twitter partners or have positive community reviews
✅ Review permissions carefully: Don’t grant excessive permissions to unknown apps
✅ Avoid suspicious “mass follower” services: These often violate Twitter’s terms of service
✅ When in doubt, remove manually: Manual removal is always the safest option
Unsafe tools can risk your account security or even lead to suspension.
How to Stop Bots from Following You on Twitter
While you can’t block every bot, you can reduce the number:
- Switch to a private account if you only want approved followers.
- Regularly review and remove fake or inactive accounts.
- Avoid engaging with suspicious profiles.
- Remember that inactive Twitter accounts can also hurt your credibility if you don’t clean them up.
Many fake profiles target incomplete pages. Optimizing your bio with relevant details and tone helps discourage spam. See creative examples in Twitter bio ideas to write a clean, trustworthy description.
If you’re wondering should you remove bot followers on Twitter, the answer is yes, keeping your follower list authentic helps your profile stay trustworthy.
Make Your Account Private
Switch to a private account if you only want approved followers. This gives you complete control over who can follow you, though it limits your public reach.
To make your account private, adjust your privacy settings through Settings → Privacy and Safety → Audience and Tagging.
Regularly Review and Clean Your Follower List
Set a schedule to review your followers monthly or quarterly. Regular maintenance prevents bot accumulation and keeps your engagement metrics accurate.
Avoid Engaging with Suspicious Profiles
Don’t follow back, like, or reply to suspicious accounts. Engagement signals to bots that your account is active and receptive, inviting more bot follows.
Optimize Your Profile
Many fake profiles target incomplete or suspicious-looking pages. Creating a trustworthy appearance helps discourage spam. For inspiration on crafting an authentic presence, explore creative examples in guides about profile optimization.
Understanding how to structure your Twitter presence strategically can naturally reduce bot attention. If you’re looking to increase your legitimate reach, learning proper Twitter SEO techniques helps you attract real users instead of automated accounts.
Enable Stronger Privacy Settings
Review your account settings regularly:
- Limit who can tag you in photos
- Control who can see your tweets
- Restrict direct message permissions
- Disable location sharing if unnecessary
Use Twitter’s Quality Filter
Enable Twitter’s quality filter, which automatically removes notifications from suspicious accounts. Access this through Settings → Notifications → Filters.
Why Removing Bot Followers Matters
Some users wonder if having bot followers is really harmful. The answer is yes, for several important reasons:
Damaged Credibility
When brands, potential collaborators, or real users check your profile and see obvious bot followers, your credibility takes a hit. It suggests you’ve bought followers or don’t maintain your account properly.
Skewed Analytics
Bot followers distort your true engagement metrics. If 50% of your followers are bots, your engagement rate appears much lower than reality since bots rarely engage authentically with content.
Algorithm Impact
Twitter’s algorithm considers engagement rates when deciding which tweets to show. Bot followers who don’t engage hurt your content’s visibility to real users.
Security Risks
Some sophisticated bots attempt phishing scams or spread malware through links. Having bots in your followers increases your exposure to these security threats.
Reduced Organic Reach
Twitter has become better at detecting fake engagement. Accounts with high bot follower percentages may see reduced organic reach as the platform de-prioritizes their content.
If you’re wondering “should you remove bot followers on Twitter?” the answer is yes. Keeping your follower list authentic helps your profile stay trustworthy, improves real engagement rates, and protects your account reputation.
Watch Out for Account Activity Limits
When removing or blocking multiple followers quickly, you might get temporary restrictions such as “rate limit exceeded.”
This usually means you’ve hit the system cap for the day. Learn more about what triggers it in Twitter rate limit exceeded and how to stay within safe action limits.
Twitter also limits how many people you can follow or unfollow per day.
Understanding the Twitter follow limit helps you clean your followers without accidental penalties or shadow restrictions.
If you often message new followers, remember that the platform also caps daily messages.
Review the Twitter DM limit to avoid hitting unwanted messaging blocks while communicating with genuine followers.
If you’re wondering should you remove bot followers on Twitter, the answer is yes, keeping your follower list authentic helps your profile stay trustworthy. When removing or blocking multiple followers quickly, you might trigger temporary restrictions such as “rate limit exceeded.”
This usually means you’ve hit the system cap for the day. These limits exist to prevent abuse and protect the platform from malicious automated activity.
Understanding Twitter’s Rate Limits
Twitter imposes several rate limits on user actions:
Following/Unfollowing: Twitter limits how many people you can follow or unfollow per day (typically around 400 combined actions).
Blocking: While less restrictive, mass blocking can trigger temporary limits if done too aggressively.
Messaging: If you often message new followers, remember that the platform also caps daily messages to prevent spam.
Tweet Actions: Liking, retweeting, and replying also have daily limits, though they’re generally higher than follow limits.
These restrictions help Twitter maintain platform quality, but they can interfere with bot cleanup efforts. Pace your removal actions across several days if you have hundreds of bots to remove.
What Happens When You Hit Rate Limits?
When you exceed rate limits, Twitter may:
- Temporarily prevent you from performing certain actions
- Display error messages about exceeding limits
- Apply short-term restrictions (usually 24 hours)
- In extreme cases, temporarily suspend account features
The good news is these restrictions are temporary. Wait 24 hours, then continue your cleanup efforts at a more moderate pace.
Best Practices to Avoid Rate Limits
Spread removal over multiple days: Instead of removing 500 bots in one session, remove 50-100 per day.
Use removal, not blocking: Removing followers (soft blocking) is generally less likely to trigger limits than hard blocking.
Take breaks: Allow several hours between removal sessions.
Use whitelist features: When using tools like Circleboom, use whitelist functions to protect genuine accounts from accidental removal.
Related Considerations for Twitter (X) Users
Managing bots is just one part of building a healthy account. Here are a few other things to keep in mind:
- If you’ve thought about rebranding, here’s everything you need to know about how frequently you can update your Twitter username and what it means for your profile.
- Some people try shortcuts to grow faster, but buying Twitter followers comes with risks that could damage your account reputation.
- For marketers, joining top social media discussion forums is a great way to stay updated on how others are handling bots, growth strategies, and engagement challenges.
- Curious about where Twitter stands in the digital world? Compare it with other top social media platforms to see how it performs for businesses.
Related Twitter Best Practices
Managing bots is just one part of building a healthy Twitter account. Here are other considerations for maintaining an authentic, engaging presence:
Improve Your Twitter Strategy
Want to maximize your reach with real users? Understanding Twitter SEO fundamentals helps your content reach genuine audiences who care about your message.
Sometimes you need to view Twitter content without logging in for research purposes. Using a Twitter viewer tool can help you analyze competitor strategies and trending topics.
Manage Your Twitter Privacy
If you’ve switched to a private account to control bot followers, make sure you know how to make your Twitter account public again when you’re ready to expand your reach.
Some users want to keep certain engagement private. Learning how to hide likes on Twitter lets you engage with content without broadcasting every interaction.
Optimize Your Content Strategy
Curating relevant content is easier when you follow topics on Twitter that matter to your niche. This helps you discover real conversations to join instead of bot-generated noise.
Research shows that reviewing your Twitter history periodically helps identify patterns in bot follows and engagement. This data helps you adjust your strategy.
Clean Up Your Twitter Presence
Beyond followers, consider cleaning other aspects of your Twitter account. If you encounter sensitive content warnings frequently, adjust your settings through content warning controls.
Occasionally, you may want to delete Twitter media from old tweets to refresh your profile or remove outdated content.
Mobile users especially benefit from knowing how to clear Twitter cache, which can improve app performance and free up storage space.
Did you post something you regret? Twitter now allows limited editing through the edit tweet feature, though with important limitations you should understand.
FAQs
Go to your profile → Followers list → tap the three dots next to the account → select “Remove this follower.” The process works identically on iPhone and Android devices through the Twitter/X mobile app.
On mobile, open your Followers list, tap the three dots next to the account you want to remove, and select “Remove this follower.” The account won’t be notified of the removal.
Twitter does not provide a native mass removal option. However, you can remove accounts one by one manually, or use trusted third-party tools like Circleboom (an official X partner) with bulk removal capabilities. Always use tools cautiously and review their permissions carefully.
If your account is private, only approved users can follow you. You can remove any unwanted accounts at any time without blocking.
You can remove bot followers manually by going to your follower list and clicking “Remove this follower.” For bulk cleaning, trusted apps can help, but review their permissions carefully.
Go to their profile → click the three-dot menu → select “Remove this follower.” This action is silent; they won’t get a notification.
Yes. Removing bots improves your engagement accuracy and helps the Twitter/X algorithm better understand your authentic audience. This leads to better content recommendations in your “For You” feed and improved visibility for your tweets to real users who actually care about your content.
Open the fake profile, click Report, and select “Fake account” or “Impersonation.” If multiple users report the same account, Twitter/X often takes it down faster. Provide as much detail as possible in your report, including why you believe the account is fake and any evidence of impersonation or suspicious activity.
Final Thoughts
Bots might look harmless, but having too many spam accounts following you can lower engagement and credibility. By learning how to stop bot followers on Twitter and cleaning your list regularly, you’ll ensure your audience is authentic and your account remains strong. Focus on genuine growth and your Twitter/X presence will be much more valuable.
The key strategies to remember:
✅ Regularly review your followers for suspicious accounts
✅ Use a combination of manual removal and trusted tools
✅ Report obvious bot accounts to help the community
✅ Adjust your privacy settings to prevent future bot follows
✅ Focus on building genuine connections with real users
Stay consistent with these cleanup practices and respect daily platform caps. Your Twitter/X profile will stay credible, compliant, and growth-ready. Focus on genuine growth strategies rather than inflated follower numbers, and your Twitter/X presence will be much more valuable in the long run.
Alex Bennett is an entrepreneur whose practical tips have helped thousands improve their careers and grow with confidence.