Graph convolution networks for social media trolls detection use deep feature extraction

Abstract

This study presents a novel approach to identifying trolls and toxic content on social media using deep learning. We developed a machine-learning model capable of detecting toxic images through their embedded text content. Our approach leverages GloVe word embeddings to enhance the model's predictive accuracy. We also utilized Graph Convolutional Networks (GCNs) to effectively analyze the intricate relationships inherent in social media data. The practical implications of our work are significant, despite some limitations in the model's performance. While the model accurately identifies toxic content more than half of the time, it struggles with precision, correctly identifying positive instances less than 50% of the time. Additionally, its ability to detect all positive cases (recall) is limited, capturing only 40% of them. The F1-score, which is a measure of the model's balance between precision and recall, stands at around 0.4, indicating a need for further refinement to enhance its effectiveness. This research offers a promising step towards more effective monitoring and moderation of toxic content on social platforms.