Review of Offensive Language Detection on Social Media: Current Trends and Opportunities

Offensive language is defined as derogatory or obscene language that has various forms such as hate speech or cyberbullying. Automated detection of offensive language gains traction due to the high and growing scale of social media user input. In this paper, we provide an overview of the field including background and recent research with a focus on natural language processing. We present a synopsis on the ambiguity in definition and categorization of offensive language, application areas of an automated system, shared tasks organized in this field, dataset creation, model evolution in time through machine learning and deep learning algorithms. Finally challenges and gaps in research are discussed.