Overview

Howie is a Discord bot that catches hijacked accounts posting fake giveaways, casino promotions and other scams, then removes them in about a second.

The problem

When a Discord account is stolen, the thief uses it to post the same scam in every channel and every server the account can reach. The posts usually show a celebrity, often MrBeast, "giving away" money through a casino or crypto site. Members trust the post because it comes from someone they know.

By the time a human moderator sees it, the post has been up for minutes and copied across a dozen channels. Howie is built to act before most members ever see it.

How Howie works

1. AutoMod blocks known scam text. Howie sets up Discord AutoMod rules for known scam links and phrases, so Discord blocks those messages before they post.
2. Fast checks run on every message. Howie checks message text, links and attachment fingerprints against known scams. Known scams are caught in under a second.
3. Deeper checks handle new variants. When a post looks suspicious but isn't a known match, Howie hides it and times out the account right away, then reads the text inside the images to decide.
4. Howie acts and reports. Howie applies the action your server chose and, if you want, posts a report with the evidence to a channel you pick.

Every server that uses Howie makes it smarter. When Howie confirms a scam image anywhere, it remembers that image's fingerprint and catches it everywhere else on the first post. Only image fingerprints are shared, never user IDs or messages.

Quick start

1. Add Howie to your server at howie.lol/invite. You need the Manage Server permission to add bots.
2. Run /setup to pick which scams to catch, what Howie should do and where to post reports. Until you do, Howie still protects your server with safe defaults.
3. Move Howie's role up above your members' roles in Server Settings, so Howie can act on them. Here's why.

Learn more

• Setup: the full setup flow and commands.
• Permissions: every permission Howie asks for and why.
• What Howie catches: scam types, how detection works, actions and reports.
• Troubleshooting: what to do when Howie doesn't act, or acts on the wrong message.