File size: 6,874 Bytes
218d076
24183b3
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
24ca632
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
24183b3
24ca632
24183b3
24ca632
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
218d076
24183b3
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3456eca
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
24183b3
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3456eca
24183b3
3456eca
 
24183b3
3456eca
 
 
 
24183b3
3456eca
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
24183b3
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
7a89801
 
 
 
 
 
24183b3
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
7a89801
 
 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
---
license: cc-by-nc-4.0
language:
- ar
task_categories:
- image-classification
- image-text-to-text
pretty_name: ArGuard  Track A (Arabic Hateful Memes)
tags:
- hate-speech
- memes
- arabic
- multimodal
- multi-label
- arabic-nlp
size_categories:
- 1K<n<10K
configs:
- config_name: default
  data_files:
  - split: train
    path: data/train-*
  - split: dev
    path: data/dev-*
  - split: dev_test
    path: data/dev_test-*
  default: true
dataset_info:
  config_name: default
  features:
  - name: id
    dtype: string
  - name: image
    dtype: image
  - name: text
    dtype: string
  - name: label
    dtype: string
  - name: fine_grained_label
    sequence: string
  splits:
  - name: train
    num_examples: 3500
  - name: dev
    num_examples: 500
  - name: dev_test
    num_examples: 500
---

# ArGuard – Track A: Arabic Hateful Memes

This repository hosts the official dataset for **Track A** of the
**ArGuard** shared task: multimodal hateful-meme detection in Arabic.
Each instance is an Arabic meme (image + OCR-extracted overlaid text)
manually annotated for hatefulness and fine-grained sub-types.

> **Content warning.** The dataset contains text and imagery that is
> offensive, discriminatory, or otherwise harmful by design. Handle
> with care.

## Track A subtasks

Given a meme (image + Arabic text):

- **Subtask A1 – Binary.** Classify the meme as `Hateful` or `Not Hateful`.
- **Subtask A2 – Fine-grained category prediction (multi-label).** Predict
  the applicable fine-grained sub-type(s) from a unified taxonomy that
  covers both hateful and non-hateful categories. Hateful memes draw
  labels from the hateful sub-type set (Mocking, Incitement,
  Dehumanization, Slurs, Contempt, Inferiority, Exclusion, …); non-hateful
  memes draw from `Humor`, `Sarcasm`, plus the shared `Other`. Both
  subtasks are evaluated on every meme.

## Splits

| Split        | Records | Labels       | Source                                 | Released                  |
|--------------|---------|--------------|----------------------------------------|---------------------------|
| `train`      |  3,500  | full         | single-annotated bulk                  | development phase         |
| `dev`        |    500  | full         | single-annotated bulk                  | development phase         |
| `dev_test`   |    500  | **dropped**  | single-annotated test sample           | development phase (leaderboard) |
| `test`       |    500  | full         | **triple-annotated gold** (calibration) | final-evaluation phase    |

- `dev_test` is the **leaderboard set** for the development phase. Labels
  are intentionally stripped (`label = null`, `fine_grained_label = []`)
  and will be released only after the development phase closes.
- `test` is the **held-out blind test** for final ranking. All 500 records
  are triple-annotated with majority voting. This split is not part of
  the public release and will appear here only when the final-evaluation
  phase begins.

### Binary label distribution

| Split      | Hateful | Not Hateful | % Hateful |
|------------|--------:|------------:|----------:|
| train      |  1,324  |       2,176 |     37.8% |
| dev        |    189  |         311 |     37.8% |
| dev_test   |    189  |         311 |     37.8% |
| test       |    148  |         352 |     29.6% |
| **Total**  | **1,850** | **3,150** |     37.0% |

### Fine-grained sub-types (Subtask A2)

The Subtask A2 label space is **one unified multi-label vocabulary**
that covers both hateful and non-hateful sub-types:

- **Hateful sub-types** (active in the released data): Mocking,
  Incitement, Dehumanization, Slurs, Contempt, Inferiority, Exclusion.
- **Non-hateful sub-types**: Humor, Sarcasm.
- **Shared**: Other (used by both Hateful and Not-Hateful memes).

Five additional hateful classes appear in the annotation taxonomy but
have **zero training support** in the released data: Extremism,
Historical, Insults, Stereotyping, Threat. They are documented for
completeness, accepted by the format checker, and ignored by the scorer.

In practice each meme's fine-grained labels are drawn from its own
binary class: a Hateful meme will only carry hateful sub-types (and/or
`Other`); a Not-Hateful meme will only carry `Humor` / `Sarcasm` /
`Other`. Sub-types are multi-label, so per-class counts sum to more
than the meme counts.

## Record schema

```python
{
    "id": "f9a8…b1.jpg",            # str – original image filename, unique
    "image": <PIL.Image.Image>,     # embedded bytes, decoded on access
    "text": "…",                    # str – OCR-extracted Arabic meme text
    "label": "Hateful" | "Not Hateful" | None,  # None on dev_test
    "fine_grained_label": [...],    # list[str] – empty on dev_test
}
```

## Usage

```python
from datasets import load_dataset

ds = load_dataset("QCRI/ArGuard-Task1")
print(ds)

train_ex = ds["train"][0]
train_ex["image"].show()
print(train_ex["text"], train_ex["label"], train_ex["fine_grained_label"])

# dev_test is unlabelled — used only to produce leaderboard submissions
print(ds["dev_test"][0]["label"])  # -> None
```

## Shared-task resources

- **Website:** https://araieval.gitlab.io/ArGuard2026/
- **Starter kit / baselines / scorers (GitHub):** https://github.com/araieval/ArGuard-2026-tasks
- **Contact organisers:** arguard2026-organizers@googlegroups.com

## Annotation

- All memes are manually annotated following the ArGuard guidelines.
- **train**, **dev**, **dev_test**: single-annotator labels (bulk
  annotation).
- **test**: triple-annotated. Binary label is the majority vote; the
  fine-grained label set is the union of sub-types selected by
  annotators whose binary label matches the majority.
- Inter-annotator agreement on the calibration subset is above 0.81.

## Intended use and limitations

- **Intended use.** Research on Arabic multimodal hate speech detection,
  including binary classification, fine-grained sub-type prediction,
  and vision-language modelling.
- **Limitations.** Memes reflect online discourse and contain offensive
  and harmful content. Annotations on `train` / `dev` / `dev_test` are
  single-annotator and may contain noise; only the held-out `test` split
  uses triple-annotated majority-voted labels.
- **Not for deployment.** This dataset is for research and benchmarking;
  it is not a moderation tool.

## License

Released under **CC BY-NC 4.0** for non-commercial research use only.
Not to be used for commercial purposes or for training systems that
generate harmful content.

## Citation

A citation will be provided when the shared-task overview paper is
released. Until then, please cite this repository URL.

## Contact

- **Email:** arguard2026-organizers@googlegroups.com
- **Website:** https://araieval.gitlab.io/ArGuard2026/
- **GitHub:** https://github.com/araieval/ArGuard-2026-tasks