Thailand

We present an overview of the second edition of the ArAIEval shared task, organized as part of the ArabicNLP 2024 conference co-located with ACL 2024. In this edition, ArAIEval offers two tasks: (i) detection of propagandistic textual spans with persuasion techniques identification in tweets and news articles, and (ii) distinguishing between propagandistic and non-propagandistic memes. A total of 14 teams participated in the final evaluation phase, with 6 and 9 teams participating in Tasks 1 and 2, respectively. Finally, 11 teams submitted system description papers. Across both tasks, we observed that fine-tuning transformer models such as AraBERT was at the core of the majority of the participating systems. We provide a description of the task setup, including a description of the dataset construction and the evaluation setup. We further provide a brief overview of the participating systems. All datasets and evaluation scripts are released to the research community. We hope this will enable further research on these important tasks in Arabic.

ACL 2024

ArAIEval Shared Task: Propagandistic Techniques Detection in Unimodal and Multimodal Arabic Content

arabic

propaganda

multimodal

workshop paper

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Detecting propaganda in multimodal content, such as memes, is crucial for combating disinformation on social media. This paper presents a novel approach for the ArAIEval 2024 shared Task 2 on Multimodal Propagandistic Memes Classification, involving text, image, and multimodal classification of Arabic memes. For text classification (Task 2A), we fine-tune state-of-the-art Arabic language models and use ChatGPT4-generated synthetic text for data augmentation. For image classification (Task 2B), we fine-tune ResNet18, EfficientFormerV2, and ConvNeXt-tiny architectures with DALL-E-2-generated synthetic images. For multimodal classification (Task 2C), we combine ConvNeXt-tiny and BERT architectures in a fusion layer to enhance binary classification. Our results show significant performance improvements with data augmentation for text and image classification models and with the fusion layer for multimodal classification. We highlight challenges and opportunities for future research in multimodal propaganda detection in Arabic content, emphasizing the need for robust and adaptable models to combat disinformation.

MemeMind at ArAIEval Shared Task: Generative Augmentation and Feature Fusion for Multimodal Propaganda Detection in Arabic Memes through Advanced Language and Vision Models

This paper describes our participation in the ArAIEval Shared Task 2024, focusing on Task 2C, which challenges participants to detect propagandistic elements in multimodal Arabic memes. The challenge involves analyzing both the textual and visual components of memes to identify underlying propagandistic messages. Our approach integrates the capabilities of MARBERT and ResNet50, top-performing pre-trained models for text and image processing, respectively. Our system architecture combines these models through a fusion layer that integrates and processes the extracted features, creating a comprehensive representation that is more effective in detecting nuanced propaganda. Our proposed system achieved significant success, placing second with an F1 score of 0.7987.

ASOS at ArAIEval Shared Task: Integrating Text and Image Embeddings for Multimodal Propaganda Detection in Arabic Memes

This paper presents our system submitted for Task 1 of the ArAIEval Shared Task on Unimodal (Text) Propagandistic Technique Detection in Arabic. Task 1 involves identifying all employed propaganda techniques in a given text from a set of possible techniques or detecting that no propaganda technique is present. Additionally, the task requires identifying the specific spans of text where these techniques occur. We explored the capabilities of a multilingual BERT model for this task, focusing on the effectiveness of using outputs from different hidden layers within the model. By fine-tuning the multilingual BERT, we aimed to improve the model's ability to recognize and locate various propaganda techniques. Our experiments showed that leveraging the hidden layers of the BERT model enhanced detection performance. Our system achieved competitive results, ranking second in the shared task, demonstrating that multilingual BERT models, combined with outputs from hidden layers, can effectively detect and identify spans of propaganda techniques in Arabic text.

Mela at ArAIEval Shared Task: Propagandistic Techniques Detection in Arabic with a Multilingual Approach

This paper investigates the optimization of propaganda technique detection in Arabic text, including tweets & news paragraphs, from ArAIEval shared task 1. Our approach involves fine-tuning the AraBERT v2 model with a neural network classifier for sequence tagging. Experimental results show relying on the first token of the word for technique prediction produces the best performance. In addition, incorporating genre information as a feature further enhances the model's performance. Our system achieved a score of 25.41, placing us 4th on the leaderboard. Subsequent post-submission improvements further raised our score to 26.68.

Nullpointer at ArAIEval Shared Task: Arabic Propagandist Technique Detection with Token-to-Word Mapping in Sequence Tagging

This paper focuses on detecting propagandistic spans and persuasion techniques in Arabic text from tweets and news paragraphs. Each entry in the dataset contains a text sample and corresponding labels that indicate the start and end positions of propaganda techniques within the text. Tokens falling within a labeled span were assigned ’B’ (Begin) or ’I’ (Inside) tags, ’O’, corresponding to the specific propaganda technique. Using attention masks, we created uniform lengths for each span and assigned BIO tags to each token based on the provided labels. Then, we used AraBERT-base pre-trained model for Arabic text tokenization and embeddings with a token classification layer to identify propaganda techniques. Our training process involves a two-phase fine-tuning approach. First, we train only the classification layer for a few epochs, followed by full model fine-tuning, updating all parameters. This methodology allows the model to adapt to the specific characteristics of the propaganda detection task while leveraging the knowledge captured by the pretrained AraBERT model. Our approach achieved an F1 score of 0.2774, securing the 3rd position in the leaderboard of Task 1.

MemeMind at ArAIEval Shared Task: Spotting Persuasive Spans in Arabic Text with Persuasion Techniques Identification

We present the CLTL system designed for the ArAIEval Shared Task 2024 on multimodal propagandistic memes classification in Arabic. The challenge was divided into three subtasks: identifying propagandistic content from textual modality of memes (subtask 2A), from visual modality of memes (subtask 2B), and in a multimodal scenario when both modalities are combined (subtask 2C). We explored various unimodal transformer models for Arabic language processing (subtask 2A), visual models for image processing (subtask 2B), and concatenated text and image embeddings using the Multilayer Perceptron fusion module for multimodal propagandistic memes classification (subtask 2C). Our system achieved 77.96% for subtask 2A, 71.04% for subtask 2B, and 79.80% for subtask 2C, ranking 2nd, 1st, and 3rd on the leaderboard.

CLTL at ArAIEval Shared Task: Multimodal Propagandistic Memes Classification Using Transformer Models

In recent days, propaganda has started to influence public opinion increasingly as social media usage continues to grow. Our research has been part of the first challenge, Unimodal (Text) Propagandistic Technique Detection of ArAIEval shared task at the ArabicNLP 2024 conference, co-located with ACL 2024, identifying specific Arabic text spans using twenty-three propaganda techniques. We have augmented underrepresented techniques in the provided dataset using synonym replacement and have evaluated various machine learning (RF, SVM, MNB), deep learning (BiLSTM), and transformer-based models (bert-base-arabic, Marefa-NER, AraBERT) with transfer learning. Our comparative study has shown that the transformer model "bert-base-arabic'' has outperformed other models. Evaluating the test set, it has achieved the micro-F1 score of 0.2995 which is the highest. This result has secured our team "CUET_sstm'' first place among all participants in task 1 of the ArAIEval.

CUET_sstm at ArAIEval Shared Task: Unimodal (Text) Propagandistic Technique Detection Using Transformer-Based Model

The rise of memes as a tool for spreading propaganda presents a significant challenge in the current digital environment. In this paper, we outline our work for the ArAIEval Shared Task2 in ArabicNLP 2024. This study introduces a method for identifying propaganda in Arabic memes using a multimodal system that combines textual and visual indicators to enhance the result. Our approach achieves the first place in text classification with Macro-F1 of 78.69%, the third place in image classification with Macro-F1 of 65.92%, and the first place in multimodal classification with Macro-F1 of 80.51%

AlexUNLP-MZ at ArAIEval Shared Task: Contrastive Learning, LLM Features Extraction and Multi-Objective Optimization for Arabic Multi-Modal Meme Propaganda Detection

Detecting propagandistic spans and identifying persuasion techniques are crucial for promoting informed decision-making, safeguarding democratic processes, and fostering a media environment characterized by integrity and transparency. Various machine learning (Logistic Regression, Random Forest, and Multinomial Naive Bayes), deep learning (CNN, CNN+LSTM, CNN+BiLSTM), and transformer-based (AraBERTv2, AraBERT-NER, CamelBERT, BERT-Base-Arabic) models were exploited to perform the task. The evaluation results indicate that CamelBERT achieved the highest micro-F1 score (24.09%), outperforming CNN+LSTM and AraBERTv2. The study found that most models struggle to detect propagandistic spans when multiple spans are present within the same article. Overall, the model's performance secured a $6^{th}$ place ranking in the ArAIEval Shared Task-1.

SemanticCuetSync at ArAIEval Shared Task: Detecting Propagandistic Spans with Persuasion Techniques Identification using Pre-trained Transformers

In this paper, we are exploring mitigating class imbalance in Arabic propaganda detection. Given a multigenre text which could be a news paragraph or a tweet, the objective is to identify the propaganda technique employed in the text along with the exact span(s) where each technique occurs. We approach this task as a sequence tagging task. We utilise AraBERT for sequence classification and implement data augmentation and random truncation methods to mitigate the class imbalance within the dataset. We demonstrate the importance of considering macro-F1 as well as micro-F1 when evaluating classifier performance in this scenario.

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