Sledgehammer or Scalpel? A Fine-grained Adaptive Framework for Implicit Hate Speech

[2608.27462] Sledgehammer or Scalpel? A Fine-grained Adaptive Framework for Implicit Hate Speech Detection Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Computer Science > Computation and Language arXiv:2608.27462 (cs) [Submitted on 10 Jul 2026 ( v1 ), last revised 2 Nov 2026 (this version, v2)] Title: Sledgehammer or Scalpel? A Fine-grained Adaptive Framework for Implicit Hate Speech Detection Authors: Han Wang , Hanqing Tao , Xuesong Wang , Yi Zhu View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: Unlike explicit attacks with obvious profanity, implicit hate speech hides malice within seemingly compliant expressions through metaphors and contextual hints, making its detection in online content review challenging. Many PLM- or LLM-based methods apply the same processing pipeline across samples, which may overlook differences in information requirements and introduce unnecessary computation. We observe that online hate speech is not monolithic but manifests in varied forms. We therefore define three fine-grained categories: Shallow, Targeted, and Context-Dependent. Accordingly, we propose Fine-grained Adaptive Implicit Hate speech Detection (FAID), a novel framework that first performs fine-grained classification and then adapts to specific categories. Specifically, for Shallow samples with surface-identifiable intents, the framework adopts lightweight Prompt-Tuning for rapid classification; for Targeted comments that bind malicious intent to concealed targets, we design knowledge augmentation to iteratively refine the model and reveal hidden targets; for Context-Dependent comments lacking background information, we utilize an agentic framework that automatically generates prompts to evolve context, infer missing background information and identify ambiguous malicious intents. This adaptive architecture focuses computational resources on complex implicit samples while avoiding redundant reasoning for shallow samples. Experiments on four benchmark datasets demonstrate that FAID significantly outperforms SOTA baselines. Subjects: Computation and Language (cs.CL) ; Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI) Cite as: arXiv:2608.27462 [cs.CL] (or arXiv:2608.27462v2 [cs.CL] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.27462 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Yi Zhu [ view email ] [v1] Fri, 10 Jul 2026 02:41:55 UTC (637 KB) [v2] Mon, 2 Nov 2026 07:45:19 UTC (746 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Additional Features Audio Summary Current browse context: cs.CL < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: cs cs.AI References & Citations SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab)

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