Related papers: The Hidden Language of Harm: Examining the Role of Emojis in Harmful Online Communication and Content Moderation

The Hidden Language of Harm: Examining the Role of Emojis in Harmful Online Communication and Content Moderation

URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2506.00583v1
Date: Sat, 31 May 2025 14:39:08 GMT
Title: The Hidden Language of Harm: Examining the Role of Emojis in Harmful Online Communication and Content Moderation
Authors: Yuhang Zhou, Yimin Xiao, Wei Ai, Ge Gao,
Abstract summary: Emojis, despite being rarely offensive in isolation, can acquire harmful meanings through symbolic associations, sarcasm, and contextual misuse.<n>We propose an LLM-powered, multi-step moderation pipeline that replaces harmful emojis while preserving the tweet's semantic intent.<n>Our analysis also reveals heterogeneous effects across offense types, offering nuanced insights for online communication and emoji moderation.
Score: 13.409540662525995
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Abstract: Social media platforms have become central to modern communication, yet they also harbor offensive content that challenges platform safety and inclusivity. While prior research has primarily focused on textual indicators of offense, the role of emojis, ubiquitous visual elements in online discourse, remains underexplored. Emojis, despite being rarely offensive in isolation, can acquire harmful meanings through symbolic associations, sarcasm, and contextual misuse. In this work, we systematically examine emoji contributions to offensive Twitter messages, analyzing their distribution across offense categories and how users exploit emoji ambiguity. To address this, we propose an LLM-powered, multi-step moderation pipeline that selectively replaces harmful emojis while preserving the tweet's semantic intent. Human evaluations confirm our approach effectively reduces perceived offensiveness without sacrificing meaning. Our analysis also reveals heterogeneous effects across offense types, offering nuanced insights for online communication and emoji moderation.

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