Game On, Hate Off

A Study of Toxicity in Online Multiplayer Environments

Zachary YangNicolas Grenen-GodboutRaihaneh Rabbany

August 12, 2024,

Research, Research Article

The advent of online spaces, particularly social media platforms and video games, has brought forth a significant challenge: the detection and mitigation of toxic and harmful speech. This issue is not only pervasive but also detrimental to the overall user experience. In this study, we leverage small language models to reliably detect toxicity, achieving an average precision of 0.95. Analyzing eight months of chat data from two Ubisoft games, we uncover patterns and trends in toxic behavior. The insights derived from our research will con- tribute to the development of healthier online communities and inform preventive measures against toxicity.

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Zachary Yang

Zachary Yang

Nicolas Grenen-Godbout

Nicolas Grenen-Godbout

Data scientist with a strong background in statistics, machine learning and algorithmics. Passionate about educating and empowering colleagues from all horizons, and am always looking for opportunities to exchange knowledge and experience in that ever changing field. Leading a team of data scientists within the Ubisoft Data Office.

Raihaneh Rabbany

Raihaneh Rabbany

With my group, at Complex Data Lab, we work on designing methods for analyzing such data; building on techniques for graph mining, graph representation learning, unsupervised and self-supervised learning, anomaly detection, learning with weak and/or uncertain labels, and active and human-in-the-loop learning.

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