Oh fun.... before stumbling on to this thread I actually thought that when I ban someone, that it's a kick+ban and they can't enter my stream or atleast not the chat anymore. Why are they still allowed to read the chat after they are banned?

This makes me really anxious , not only for bots, but because there is people who have actual real life stalkers who follow them around the internet too, so they are not safe anywhere. Why wouldn't Twitch add an option to ban whole user when we notice it's someone we know from the past to be source of problems?
Now I know there is many ways for them to still lurk, because nothing on internet is safe. But why make it even easier for people like that, when you don't have the kick+ban option?

0_applebadapple_0, commanderroot, and decafsmurf have been in my viewer list. I thought it was actual viewers and I wasn't getting credit for their views. I ran across a video today on YouTube of someone talking about view bots and how it can keep you from becoming partner if it comes about. I don't know if I'll ever get to the partner level or even if I can get to affiliate but this is pretty messed up and there should be a fix to get rid of these people. I'm hoping that twitch knows about these people and is doing something about it, I'm assuming twitch does know since they don't seem to be counting towards my concurrent viewer count. If anyone can help with this issue please post.

@xxxMALICIOUS Chriseaay IS NOT A BOT !!!

I don't know how you can think my Twitch Streaming Channel could be a Bot!

Check the Channels before you Post Sh** !!

@Everyone Chriseaay is NOT A BOT

Ps: If u Like Rocket League / Cod / Fortnite ect.. Check out my Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/chriseaay

To be fair, just an option to kick with captcha to any user within your chat should be a thing, the user is kicked until they complete the captcha. simple. Why? because they are annoying.

Add 0_applebadapple_0 and Woppes to the list. So, how many bots does that make now? How many till they're actually something that Twitch will do something about?

When I stream, 6 out of 7 chat users are bots and blocking them doesn't do anything. They just keep sitting there and there is no way to get rid of them as it seems.

This is becoming a bigger and bigger problem. I now have 10+ bots in my channel, it's becoming a real issue.

@xxxMALICIOUS you forgot BloodyXellos, CogWhistle, V_and_K and Virgoproz.

"3:21twitchanalyticbot: I changed it yesterday to be in channels of >5 viewers instead of >500 viewers :P
3:43NoseBabe: I just restarted it to only be in >15 viewers, due to people being unhappy
3:43NoseBabe: Sorry mate, it's an innocent bot, dont want anyone to be affraid of anything"

admits for linking bots into many channels to gain financial info of streamers, which is against ToS (never asked permission to run his bot to gather said info), and against the law!

https://twitchanalysis.top/about leads to info stating: "TwitchAnalysis started off as a small project to find out how many subscribers a single streamer had, as I was curious how much money they were making." and https://twitchanalysis.top:8777/dashboard leads to a link that asks for your twitch authorization to be able to untrack yourself! which is not acceptable!"

They were in another streamer's channel (I mod for), and we asked him to remove himself, he stated he'd blacklist the channel to not come back, he has come back several times tonight... reporting them to twitch has done us nothing, WE NEED A KICK OPTION!

plsgivsubmysterygift and LetsSeeHowManyGiftsIGet

I know everyone thinks this is harmless, but these two were in my chat today. ever since the community gift subbing has been happening. best thing to do is to ignore it, and move on. i think they're just doing this for attention.

It's funny, I get people trying to degrade my legit common sense requests all the time... and the last time this happened, people told me it wasn't feasible to get follower only/regular only chat available... and low and behold we get such a thing approx 2 months after my request for it.

Do I ban all lurkers, no, if I know someone is a real person (seen them in other channels that have actually chatted, or has come in and talked to me before, etc etc), then I know they are legit lurkers, but the BOTS are against terms of service because they did not request permission to use their bots in my channel.

I believe that these bots sit there to log the places you host and raid so that when they unless their spam bots, they spread much more quickly across live channels in their database, if you've haven't paid attention, even some of the twitch staff accounts gotten phished and compromised...

This is obviously a thing that's been happening almost every summer thus far, which leads me to believe they have to start over from scratch, research/log for a few months and then restart their attacks. could be the same person for all we know. (probably just doing it for kicks...)

I'd like the option to not only Ban but kick them from the channel so they can't access without some sort of Captcha, which means they need to physically use the site. furthermore, it'd be nice to have it send an auto alert to Twitch that something is fishy about said account when it's deemed kicked. Bot accounts are one of the higher risks in a channel.

Not only are they against ToS, not only are they logging info, not only do they put a streamer, and viewer, and hostee/raid target at risk, but if you also know, it affects numbers. Twitch is against people using bots to influence their numbers to a partnership, hence one of many reasons against ToS... NOW, I may not want to become a partner (not worth the stress on my health personally, not my cup of cherry coke...), but I know many other broadcasters that I want to help, that I don't want to spread these bots to their channels... which stops the flow of hosting/raiding. Last year, when I had this same issue, I warned my viewers, "Look I have to shut off stream for like 10 mins for these bots to leave the channel so that I can properly host/raid someone that doesn't have this bot in their channel, they don't tend to follow the host/raid then." who wants to sit here waiting 10 mins for a bot to leave their channel, not me, be faster to just kick them and then host/raid. there, no false inflation of numbers, no way to log the host/raid being sent, etc etc. Lot faster, lot more common sense, and low and behold, Twitch would get a notification, "hey, there's a lot of people kicking this one account off the site, let's see if they ever spoke anywhere, and let them prove they are human and not a bot. Oh it's a human, okay, let them back on, give them a simple warning of the issue... oh it's a bot, let's see if we can deter this account from coming back. Oh this particular person is falsely kicking a bunch of a people for fun?... let's suspend their account, this isn't a game..."

I never once stated to ban/kick lurkers that are legit lurkers, but I do request when a "lurker" joins chat, to at least whisper me they are real so I don't confuse them for a bot... well, all the bot accounts, I have message to verify they are not bot accounts (whispered), and not one of them left my channel as I requested, and not one of them verified themselves as just legit lurkers, I mean, there's no reason to lurk while offline, my bot to award currency isn't even on... so it's not like they are earning anything, pointless, bot accounts I already banned from earning points in my channel, or have any permissions in my channel, but they always have the option to whisper me to lift a ban, but they don't do that, BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTS! and are reported as such, I send enough proof to twitch on this daily. The problem is, twitch doesn't take us very seriously of our concerns, and now we have this phishing scam spam bots taking over a bunch of accounts including some staff accounts... so tell me again why this isn't a legit thing we should have?

Just gonna pop in with the following:

While what you're asking seems reasonable at face value, you seem to forget that account creation on twitch is simple and easy. Not only that but a "bot" is just code connecting to Twitch chat with a user name, so any user you see in your chat could be a bot and be gathering info or other things. No really, any user, even "human" users can run bot code off their machine or a server to connect to various chats. And this doesn't even cover the one thing your may not know about, you don't even have to connect to Twitch chat to read chat. No really, I can read every message sent in your chat without ever connecting to your chat or appearing in the chatter list.

You're asking for something that ultimately doesn't accomplish anything. Additionally, if it's a bot account that isn't saying or doing anything in your chat, how is it negatively impacting your channel or chat? I'm asking seriously here, there are many references to bot accounts that literally just sit in your chat but don't talk, they aren't negatively impacting anything to do with your channel. And if they do talk in chat and become disruptive, ban them, then they can't chat and be disruptive. As for them logging, I refer you to the above, there is no need for them to be there to do that, so kicking them out of the channel doesn't really accomplish anything. Also, do you ban all lurkers? From your comments it looks like you do, which is just silly.

As for some of the other comments here;
Banning a user from your channel means they can't talk anymore, if it kicks them they can just login with another account, or not at all (see above) and still see chat!
Email verification isn't sticky, meaning that if you change e-mail addresses on the account or remove the one that's there, you have to re-verify before you can chat again!
IP Bans happen, often, but then they just need to change their IP, and if they are running a bot on a hosed server that is often just a matter of assigning a new IP from the pool, so it's inconvenient for like 2 minutes.
There are special account settings and flags that go onto bot accounts (is_verified_bot and is_known_bot), as well as other things happening in the background that tie accounts together.

Ultimately what you're requesting is not something that would have any impact or change on what you are describing in any way, and would focus Twitch Development resources on something that has little to no overall benefit in the grand scheme of things.

I created this thread over a year ago, as some have pointed out. I'd like to add we are now facing a new threat of bot accounts.

"4:51Info_Bot_by_Stranqe: Streamer: ****** | Playing: No Man's Sky | Title: ****** #****** #****** ~******~ | Viewers: 42 | Total Views: 47005 | Uptime: 6 hours, 47 minutes, 55 seconds | CorgiDerp Show your support by following Twitch / @****** CorgiDerp
4:51Me: what is that?
4:51Me: looks like it's one of those bots....
4:51Info_Bot_by_Stranqe: sorry
4:51Info_Bot_by_Stranqe: just trying out my new bot
************ banned info_bot_by_stranqe.
4:52Me: you have to ask for permission to use bots in anyone's channels, and it's against ToS, and now, I'm reporting and banning in many channels."

I removed sensitive info, basically, it grabbed info of the channel and relayed in back into the chat. shortly after reporting this bot, I lost privileges to ban accounts in all my channels I mod and stream from with a "reasoning" tag... no idea how or why, but Twitch needs to fix their services...

We as streamers/moderators should have the right to protect our channels from unwanted guests for any reason we feel is necessary to report, and when twitch doesn't take us seriously... it's bad business practice for the twitch in general. I'm sure anyone with a business education and ethics101 would know, you don't piss off the base of people that support you... This is seriously getting out of hand, and should have been taken cared of a LONG time ago.

We shouldn't have to run a BOT'S command to remove them from our channel, we should be running our own twitch channel commands to remove a bot from our channel. If a person shows up to lurk, that's fine, but please at least let us get PROOF that you are a legit lurker and not a bot! it is literally against ToS to have unauthorized bots in a channel. We did not get your request to have our permission to be in our channel, now remove yourselves, period! If I'm calling out a name because I think it's a bot, it's not meant to be rude to a legit lurker, I have legit concerns of a bot in my channel gathering information, against my wishes, and against my viewer's wishes, and against the streamer's wishes that I'm planning to host or raid. No one should be feeling pressured into having to put their foot down on this. so just give us the option to kick them from our channel already, and let them PROVE they aren't a bot to return back in! it doesn't delurk them in any shape or form, and we don't have to stop everything we are doing to protect our channel and friends. Simple Twitch... VERY SIMPLE! why is this not a thing yet? give us one good reason why we shouldn't have this as an option, because it's against ToS, and us reporting them has done NOTHING! If anything, you're just telling us you don't actually care. So prove us wrong and show you do care and get this implemented!

Some in that list aren't bots.. and they are harmless anyway!

Gimme gimme, gimme just a little smile.. that's all I ask of you.. don't worry, don't hurry..
take it easy!

Post !nosebleedleave if you want kingnosebleed to leave your channel.

coolbotsstatsbot
givemehoneynow
kingnosebleed
electicalskateboard
electriallongboard
sickfold
bloodlustr
woppes
cutehealgirl
zanekyber
commanderroot
nightcapz
checkmyprofilee
shoutgamers
slocool
bananennanen

these are the actual bots that been in my channel, some i was able to get rid of, while some lurk. There is a total of 26 users that do this. I think there doing this to get attention. trying to get followers without going live. I hope something gets done about this.

I just saw a streamer type in "Hey CommanderRoot, I like you but I would appreciate if you would leave my chat room."

and the bot replied with "I'm sorry you feel that way. I respect your wish and will leave now."

It isn't listed in the viewer list anymore, so I'm guessing it worked?

Why is the reason to kick a bot that do nothing in your channel? Is not breaking any ToS. It don't counts as a viewer and such.

I could not agree more, these bots are an unwanted nuisance and streamers need to be given options to be able to effectively identify and deal with them. There is always at least one in my chat but I usually have up to four during any stream. They contribute nothing, are breaking the ToS and reporting them achieves precisely nothing. I would ask that Twitch please evaluate what people are saying here and genuinely consider giving streamers proper control over whether these bots may lurk in their channel or not.

We really need this. Make it happen!