Twitter Bot Detection: 7 Signals

Most accounts that get flagged never sent spam. They just fired eleven replies inside one minute.

Two systems, one name

X runs an internal classifier you cannot query, and it acts on your reach. Public detectors return a score X never sees.

A high score is not a penalty

Botometer and its peers have no enforcement power at all. Losing reach is the real danger, and it shows up in no score.

Timing is the loudest signal

Humans reply in bursts, then vanish for forty minutes. A script firing every 60.0 seconds makes a pattern no human ever has.

Cap two things, not one

Total actions per day and actions per 15 minutes are different numbers. You can clear a daily limit and still look automated for 90 seconds.

No single signal flips the switch

Classifiers aggregate. Three weak signals stacking on one account will do what none of them does alone.

Inbound beats outbound

Replying to people who mentioned you looks like conversation. Replying to strangers at scale is exactly what detectors are trained to find.

The graph is the one you cannot undo

Behavior signals reset in days. Follower structure does not, which is the strongest argument against buying followers.

Audit yourself in ten minutes

Search your handle logged out. Check the gaps between your last 200 actions. Count replies to strangers. Divide followers by following.

Get the full breakdown

All seven signals, what each one measures, and the four checks that catch a problem before X does.

Read the full guide