The Refugee Experience Online: Surfacing Positivity Amidst Hate

How can Artificial Intelligence help a stateless minority from online abuse? Research efforts in hate speech detection thus far have largely focused on identifying and subsequently filtering out negative content that specifically targets them. In this paper, we highlight a recent work [8] which tackles a different aspect of web-vulnerability of marginalized communities: sparsity of prominority voices championing their cause. The highlighted paper advocates that blocking hate alone may not be sufficient in these cases as the internet shapes community perception to a great extent in modern times and supportive comments to a vulnerable community serve a different purpose. Using an Active Sampling approach, the paper constructs a nuanced voice-for-the-voiceless classifier that automatically discovers comments supporting a (allegedly) persecuted minority. In the context of the Rohingya refugee crisis, one of the biggest humanitarian crises of modern times, the paper presents promising results that can substantially aid content moderation efforts in finding positive content supporting the Rohingyas.