Fair Play: A Machine Learning Approach to Moderating Football Fan Discussions Online
Keywords: content moderation, social media platforms, NLP
The Aim
This project sought to train and analyse various machine learning models and their ability to classify harmful content on a corpus of football-related comments.
The aim was to create a model targeting the nuances of football language and internet slang.
The Outcome
The developed models, including Logistic Regression, XGBoost, and Random Forest, demonstrated high effectiveness, achieving an average F1-Score of 0.82 in classifying harmful comments.
Takeaway Comments
The success of this project underscores the potential of machine learning in moderating online discussions, specifically in the context of sports. However, the broader implications extend far beyond sports communities. As online interactions continue to grow, it’s essential for us to foster respectful and inclusive digital environments.
Advocacy for Change:
- Promote Digital Literacy and Empathy: Educating users on the impact of their words can lead to more considerate online interactions. By fostering empathy and understanding, we can mitigate harmful behaviour.
- Develop and Implement Better Moderation Tools: Continual improvement of AI-driven moderation tools is crucial. These tools need to be adaptable to the evolving language and context of online discourse.
- Encourage Community Engagement: Platforms should encourage positive engagement and provide support for those affected by online abuse. This includes clear reporting mechanisms and mental health support.
- Prioritise Ethical AI Development: Ensuring that AI systems are transparent, fair, and unbiased is paramount. Developers must consider ethical implications and strive for inclusivity in their designs.
- Collaborate for a Safer Internet: Stakeholders, including tech companies, governments, and civil society, need to collaborate to create policies and technologies that protect users and promote healthy online communities.
By taking these steps, we can create a more respectful and inclusive digital world, benefiting not only sports fans but all online users.