Bi-Attention HateXplain : Taking into account the sequential aspect of data during explainability in a multi-task context

TL;DR

This paper introduces a BiRNN-based multi-task model for hate speech detection that considers sequential data aspects, improving explainability, classification accuracy, and reducing bias compared to existing methods.

Contribution

The proposed BiAtt-BiRNN-HateXplain model effectively incorporates sequential data in multi-task learning, enhancing explainability and reducing bias in hate speech detection.

Findings

Improved detection performance on HateXplain dataset

Enhanced explainability with stable attention mechanisms

Reduced unintentional bias in classification results

Abstract

Technological advances in the Internet and online social networks have brought many benefits to humanity. At the same time, this growth has led to an increase in hate speech, the main global threat. To improve the reliability of black-box models used for hate speech detection, post-hoc approaches such as LIME, SHAP, and LRP provide the explanation after training the classification model. In contrast, multi-task approaches based on the HateXplain benchmark learn to explain and classify simultaneously. However, results from HateXplain-based algorithms show that predicted attention varies considerably when it should be constant. This attention variability can lead to inconsistent interpretations, instability of predictions, and learning difficulties. To solve this problem, we propose the BiAtt-BiRNN-HateXplain (Bidirectional Attention BiRNN HateXplain) model which is easier to explain compared to LLMs which are more complex in view of the need for transparency, and will take into account the sequential aspect of the input data during explainability thanks to a BiRNN layer. Thus, if the explanation is correctly estimated, thanks to multi-task learning (explainability and classification task), the model could classify better and commit fewer unintentional bias errors related to communities. The experimental results on HateXplain data show a clear improvement in detection performance, explainability and a reduction in unintentional bias.