pastatimes
commented
4 years ago Guidelines for hate speech detection
Introduction
Welcome to my thesis annotation phase and thank you for choosing to participate in this task.
You're asked to read a given set of tweets in English having immigrants, migration or issues related to religion as the main topic, and, for each tweet, answer some questions regarding the presence or not of hate speech (HS) and other HS-related aspects.
Hate speech is commonly defined as any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristics.
More specifically, hate speech against immigrants, migrants, refugees, ethnicities or religious groups may include:
- insults, threats, denigrating or hateful expressions
- incitement to hatred, violence or violation of rights to individuals or groups perceived as different for somatic traits (e.g. skin color), origin, cultural traits, language, etc.
- presumed association of origin/ethnicity with cognitive abilities, propensity to crime, laziness or other vices
- references to the alleged inferiority (or superiority) of some ethnic groups with respect to others
- de-legitimation of social position or credibility based on origin/ethnicity
- references to certain backgrounds/ethnicities as a threat to the national security or welfare or as competitors in the distribution of government resources
- dehumanization or association with animals or entities considered inferior
HS identification is a challenging task that can be subject to individual biases, especially considering the fact that there is no single distinctive factor in drawing the line between HS and not-HS, but a set of variables that should be considered case by case. Therefore, while answering our questions, I ask you to CAREFULLY READ THE GUIDELINES provided in the next section.
IMPORTANT to keep in mind is that hate speech is often indirect and in that case can only be derived from the context and not so much from the explicit mentioning of e.g. immigrants.
Below are some instructions on the questions you have to answer for this job. I will refer to the targets of hate speech as the target groups. These groups can be divided into three categories:
- (ILLEGAL) IMMIGRANTS, REFUGEES OR MIGRANTS
- NATIONALITIES, ETHNICITIES, RACE OR COUNTRIES
- RELIGIONS
From this point onwards I will use the definition target group (X) while referring to ALL of these targeted groups.
Hate Speech
While answering the question "Is this tweet hateful?", you must take into account the following aspects:
A. the tweet content MUST have X as main TARGET, or even a single individual, but considered for his/her membership in that category (and NOT for the individual characteristics) B. we must deal with a message that spreads, incites, promotes or justifies HATRED OR VIOLENCE TOWARDS THE TARGET, or a message that aims at dehumanizing, hurting or intimidating the target. A tweet can be considered hateful if both of these conditions are true AND at least one of the following statements is true:
• it implies or legitimates discriminating attitudes or policies against the given target • there is an allusion to a potential threat posed by the presence of the target, or its alleged outnumbering with respect to the native population • there is a sense of dissatisfaction and frustration, which may also result in overt hostility, due to the (perceived) privileged treatment granted to the target group by the government • there is the reference (whether explicit or just implied) to violent actions of any kind perpetrated against the given target of the message
Examples of tweets that are NOT hate speech
NOT HATEFUL tweet: A. It does not incite hatred: Hundreds of Syrian refugees started crossing the border from Lebanon on Saturday. B. It does not have X as main target: @campaignforleo Ireland is a neutral and independent country which is NOT part of any military alliance. Please do not forget that and act like Ireland is a vassal state of the UK or the EU. PLEASE DO NOT ENGAGE IN STUPID and DAMAGING ACTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA. Keep good relations with Russia!
Offensive Language
While answering the question "Is this tweet offensive?", you must take into account the following aspects:
A. the tweet content MUST have X as main TARGET, or even a single individual, but considered for his/her membership in that category (and NOT for the individual characteristics) B. we must deal with a message that focuses on the potentially HURTFUL EFFECT of the tweet content on a given target
A tweet can be considered offensive if both of these conditions are true AND at least one of the following statements is true: • the given target is associated with typical human flaws, or in general negative characteristics • the status of the target group is questioned • the members of the target group are described, or just considered, unpleasant people, or just the kind of people you better have nothing to do with • there is derisive intent • the target group is addressed to by means of outrageous or degrading expressions • An overtly insulting language is used
Neutral language
If none of these previous conditions apply, then your answer will be 'Neutral'
Guidelines on hate speech are with respect to: