Work

WATCHED: A Web AI Agent Tool for Combating Hate speech by Expanding Data

Year: 2025

Type: software-paper

Abstract: Online harms are a growing problem in digital spaces, putting user safety at risk and reducing trust in social media platforms. One of the most persistent forms of harm is hate speech. To address this, we need tools that combine the speed and scale of automated systems with the judgement and insight of human moderators. These tools should not only find harmful content but also explain their decisions clearly, helping to build trust and understanding. In this paper, we present WATCHED a chatbot designed to support content moderators in tackling hate speech. The chatbot is built as an Artificial Intelligence Agent system that uses Large Language Models along with several specialised tools. It compares new posts with real examples of hate speech and neutral content, uses a BERT-based classifier to help flag harmful messages, looks up slang and informal language using sources like Urban Dictionary, generates chain-of-thought reasoning, and checks platform guidelines to explain and support its decisions. This combination allows the chatbot not only to detect hate speech but to explain why content is considered harmful, grounded in both precedent and policy. Experimental results show that our proposed method surpasses existing state-of-the-art methods, reaching a macro F1 score of 0.91. Designed for moderators, safety teams, and researchers, the tool helps reduce online harms by supporting collaboration between AI and human oversight.

Source: SoftwareX

DOI: 10.1016/j.softx.2025.102431

Authors: Paloma Piot, Diego Sánchez, Javier Parapar

Institution: Universidade da Coruña

Language: English

Topic: Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,200