Controlling Counterspeech Generation with Discourse Relations

In this paper, researchers explore the potential of using discourse-grounded counter narrative generation to combat hate speech on social media platforms. They propose a framework that integrates a discourse-based taxonomy and two prompting strategies to improve the quality and diversity of generated counterspeech. The authors analyze the effectiveness of these strategies in generating coherent and informative responses to hate speech, demonstrating that their approach can produce more nuanced and effective counterspeech than previous methods.
The researchers begin by acknowledging the importance of addressing hate speech on social media platforms, which can have serious consequences for individuals and society as a whole. They note that while counter speech has been proposed as a potential solution to this problem, existing approaches often struggle to generate coherent and effective responses to hate speech.
To address this issue, the authors propose a framework that integrates a discourse-based taxonomy with two prompting strategies. The first strategy involves using a discourse-based taxonomy to identify different types of counterspeech, such as those aimed at challenging or refuting hateful claims. The second strategy involves generating responses that are more diverse and contextually appropriate, by taking into account the specific discourse context in which the hate speech appears.
The authors evaluate their framework using a series of experiments in which they generate counterspeech to hate speech on social media platforms. They find that their approach produces more nuanced and effective counterspeech than previous methods, with responses that are better able to challenge or refute hateful claims while also taking into account the specific discourse context.
Overall, the authors suggest that their framework has the potential to improve the effectiveness of counter speech in combating hate speech on social media platforms. By integrating a discourse-based taxonomy with two prompting strategies, they demonstrate a more nuanced and effective approach to generating counterspeech than previous methods.