Follow Defense

Follow Defense helps protect your stream when a bad actor sends a large wave of bot accounts to follow your channel. These attacks can spam chat alerts, trigger overlays repeatedly, and overwhelm your moderation workflow.

DomDimaBot watches follow velocity in the background and can move through three protection levels: Silent Mode, Protection Mode, and Attack Mode.

Note

Follow Defense can be fully disabled. If you already use another protection system, turn DomDimaBot Follow Defense off to avoid interference with your alerts or moderation flow.

What Follow Defense does

When enabled, DomDimaBot can:

• Detect unusually fast follow bursts in seconds.
• Temporarily silence follow alerts to stop chat and overlay spam.
• Track followers in the current wave for review or later action.
• Ban new followers during confirmed protection events.
• Manually escalate to Attack Mode with a custom command.
• Detect raids and track raid follows without automatically treating them as attacks.
• Save attack history and possible hate raid sources for future reference.

Mode overview

Mode	Default trigger	What happens
Normal	No active burst	Follow alerts work normally.
Silent Mode	10 follows in 5 seconds	Follow alerts are suppressed and the wave is tracked. No bans happen yet.
Protection Mode	100 follows in the detection window	DomDimaBot announces protection and bans new follows from the wave, unless an active raid is detected.
Attack Mode	500 follows or manual activation	DomDimaBot bans all tracked follows from the wave and continues banning new follows until the mode expires or is reset.

All thresholds are configurable per channel.

How detection works

Follow Defense uses a short time window instead of waiting minutes to react.

By default:

• Silent threshold: 10 follows
• Detection window: 5 seconds
• Tracking duration: 60 seconds
• Protection threshold: 100 follows
• Attack threshold: 500 follows

Example:

10 follows in 5 seconds  -> Silent Mode
100 follows in 5 seconds -> Protection Mode
500 follows in 5 seconds -> Attack Mode

If a burst only reaches Silent Mode and then stops, DomDimaBot returns to normal after the tracking duration and sends a short summary instead of spamming every follow alert.

Silent Mode

Silent Mode is the first safety layer.

When it activates:

• DomDimaBot stops sending follow alert messages.
• Follow-related triggers should be suppressed while the mode is active.
• Followers in the wave are tracked.
• No one is banned yet.

This is useful for suspicious spikes that might still be legitimate.

Protection Mode

Protection Mode activates when the follow wave grows past the protection threshold.

When it activates outside of a raid:

• DomDimaBot sends a warning message to chat.
• New follows in the wave are banned using Twitch’s ban endpoint.
• Existing tracked follows remain available for escalation.

Caution

Protection Mode uses bans, not timeouts, when banning follow attackers. Make sure your thresholds match your channel’s normal activity.

Attack Mode

Attack Mode is the strongest response.

It can activate automatically when the attack threshold is reached, or manually through an AST command.

When it activates:

• DomDimaBot bans all tracked followers from the current wave.
• DomDimaBot continues banning new follows while the mode is active.
• The event is saved in attack history.
• If it was activated during a raid, the raider can be recorded as a possible hate raid source.

Danger

Attack Mode can permanently ban many accounts quickly. Only use it when you are confident the follow wave is hostile.

Manual command: !defmode

The backend provides an AST function for manual escalation:

$(bot.mode attack)

You can create your own command name for it. A recommended command is:

!defmode -> $(bot.mode attack)

You can also check status with:

$(bot.mode status)

Tip

Restrict your defense command to trusted moderators or the channel owner. It performs moderation actions.

Raid-aware behavior

Not every large follow wave is an attack. A big streamer may raid your channel with thousands of viewers and cause hundreds of legitimate follows.

When DomDimaBot receives a Twitch raid event:

• It marks the channel as being in a raid window for 5 minutes.
• Follows during that window are tracked.
• DomDimaBot does not automatically announce Protection Mode or ban raid follows just because the thresholds are reached.
• If you manually activate Attack Mode during the raid, DomDimaBot treats the tracked raid wave as hostile and can record the raider as a possible hate raid source.

This allows legitimate raids to happen normally while still giving you a fast response if the raid becomes abusive.

Global disable

Use the global Enable Follow Defense setting to turn the system on or off.

When Follow Defense is disabled:

• DomDimaBot does not queue follow defense events.
• DomDimaBot does not suppress follow alerts because of defense state.
• DomDimaBot does not perform follow-defense bans.
• Existing history remains available for review.

This is recommended if you already use another bot or moderation service for follow attack protection.

Settings reference

Setting	Default	Description
Enable Follow Defense	On	Turns the entire system on or off.
Silent Mode enabled	On	Allows the first protection layer to suppress alerts.
Protection Mode enabled	On	Allows DomDimaBot to ban new follows during a confirmed flood.
Attack Mode enabled	On	Allows automatic or manual full-wave bans.
Silent threshold	10	Number of follows needed to enter Silent Mode.
Detection window	5 seconds	Time window used for burst detection.
Protection threshold	100	Number of follows needed to enter Protection Mode.
Attack threshold	500	Number of follows needed to enter Attack Mode.
Tracking duration	60 seconds	How long DomDimaBot tracks the current wave.
Expected follows per hour	Custom	Optional baseline you set for your channel’s normal follow activity.

Recommended setup

1. Enable Follow Defense

   Turn on the global setting unless you already use another follow protection system.

2. Set realistic thresholds

   Start with the defaults, then adjust based on your channel size and normal follow activity.

3. Create a manual defense command

   Add a moderator-only command such as !defmode that runs $(bot.mode attack).

4. Tell your moderators what it does

   Make sure trusted moderators understand that Attack Mode bans all tracked follows in the active wave.

5. Review history after incidents

   Use attack logs and hate raid sources to understand what happened and tune settings later.

Common scenarios

A small suspicious spike

If 10 follows arrive in 5 seconds and then stop, DomDimaBot enters Silent Mode, suppresses alerts, tracks the wave, then returns to normal with a summary.

A clear follow flood

If the wave reaches the protection threshold outside of a raid, DomDimaBot enters Protection Mode and starts banning new follows from the wave.

A large hostile attack

If the wave reaches the attack threshold, or a moderator uses !defmode, DomDimaBot enters Attack Mode and bans all tracked follows in the wave.

A large legitimate raid

If a Twitch raid event is active, DomDimaBot tracks follows silently. It will not automatically ban raid follows unless you manually activate Attack Mode.