Re-thinking large scale hate speech identification: beyond common NLP conventions and supervised machine learning

The detection of hate speech in online spaces is traditionally conceptualized as a classification task that uses Machine Learning (ML)-driven Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. In accordance with this conceptualization, the hate speech detection task relies upon common conventions and pra...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Teixeira Fortuna, Paula Cristina
Tipo de recurso: tesis doctoral
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Institución:CBUC, CESCA
Repositorio:TDR. Tesis Doctorales en Red
OAI Identifier:oai:www.tdx.cat:10803/688156
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10803/688156
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Hate speech detection
Machine learning conventions
Algorithmic challenges
Deteccio de discurs d’odi
Convencions d’aprenentatge automàtic
Reptes algorítmics
62
Descripción
Sumario:The detection of hate speech in online spaces is traditionally conceptualized as a classification task that uses Machine Learning (ML)-driven Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. In accordance with this conceptualization, the hate speech detection task relies upon common conventions and practices in Artificial Intelligence, ML and NLP – among them interpretation of the inter-annotator agreement as a way to measure dataset quality and the use of standard metrics such as precision, recall or accuracy and benchmarks to assess model performance. However, hate speech is a highly subjective and context-dependent notion that eludes such static and disembodied practices. Their application results in definitorial challenges and the failure of the models to generalize across different datasets, two problems that I analyse in empirical studies. Furthermore, I critically reflect on the followed methodologies. I argue that many conventions in NLP are poorly suited for the problem and suggest to develop methods that are more appropriate for fighting online hate speech.