mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

MemeGuard: An LLM and VLM-based Framework for Advancing Content Moderation via Meme Intervention

arXiv 2406.05344 ↗First posted 8 Jun 2024cs.CLcited by 20

On the map: LLM safety and security → Safety alignment, refusal and guardrails

Abstract (arXiv)

In the digital world, memes present a unique challenge for content moderation due to their potential to spread harmful content. Although detection methods have improved, proactive solutions such as intervention are still limited, with current research focusing mostly on text-based content, neglecting the widespread influence of multimodal content like memes. Addressing this gap, we present textitMemeGuard, a comprehensive framework leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) and Visual Language Models (VLMs) for meme intervention. textitMemeGuard harnesses a specially fine-tuned VLM, textitVLMeme, for meme interpretation, and a multimodal knowledge selection and ranking mechanism (textitMKS) for distilling relevant knowledge. This knowledge is then employed by a general-purpose LLM to generate contextually appropriate interventions. Another key contribution of this work is the textitIntervening textitCyberbullying in Multimodal Memes (ICMM) dataset, a high-quality, labeled dataset featuring toxic memes and their corresponding human-annotated interventions. We leverage textitICMM to test textitMemeGuard, demonstrating its proficiency in generating relevant and effective responses to toxic memes.

Key facts. Cited by 20 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Safety alignment, refusal and guardrails, one of 12 directions in LLM safety and security. Builds on 29 of its 47 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 8 Jun 2024.

Builds on

29 of 47 references.

References · 29

  1. 2020An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scalecited by 29,915
  2. 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,084
  3. 2019BERTScore: Evaluating Text Generation with BERTcited by 5,462
  4. 2022Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasonerscited by 4,323
  5. 2019Parameter-Efficient Transfer Learning for NLPcited by 4,195
  6. 2023QLoRA: Efficient Finetuning of Quantized LLMscited by 3,355
  7. 2022Scaling Instruction-Finetuned Language Modelscited by 2,997
  8. 2019The Curious Case of Neural Text Degenerationcited by 2,881
  9. 2023ImageBind: One Embedding Space To Bind Them Allcited by 1,162
  10. 2023Large Language Models Can Be Easily Distracted by Irrelevant Contextcited by 820
  11. 2022BERTopic: Neural topic modeling with a class-based TF-IDF procedurecited by 779
  12. 2022A Survey on In-context Learningcited by 717
17 more
  1. 2020The Hateful Memes Challenge: Detecting Hate Speech in Multimodal Memescited by 485
  2. 2021Latent Hatred: A Benchmark for Understanding Implicit Hate Speechcited by 216
  3. 2019A Benchmark Dataset for Learning to Intervene in Online Hate Speechcited by 128
  4. 2019CONAN -- COunter NArratives through Nichesourcing: a Multilingual Dataset of Responses to Fight Online Hate Speechcited by 109
  5. 2023Artificial Artificial Artificial Intelligence: Crowd Workers Widely Use Large Language Models for Text Production Taskscited by 102
  6. 2021MOMENTA: A Multimodal Framework for Detecting Harmful Memes and Their Targetscited by 85
  7. 2023One-for-All: Generalized LoRA for Parameter-Efficient Fine-tuningcited by 84
  8. 2021Detecting Harmful Memes and Their Targetscited by 77
  9. 2023Vision Transformer with Quadrangle Attentioncited by 46
  10. 2019Argument Generation with Retrieval, Planning, and Realizationcited by 45
  11. 2023Evaluating GPT-3 Generated Explanations for Hateful Content Moderationcited by 44
  12. 2023Reinforcement Learning-based Counter-Misinformation Response Generation: A Case Study of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformationcited by 39
  13. 2023Decoding the Underlying Meaning of Multimodal Hateful Memescited by 38
  14. 2018Analyzing the hate and counter speech accounts on Twittercited by 21
  15. 2024MedSumm: A Multimodal Approach to Summarizing Code-Mixed Hindi-English Clinical Queriescited by 19
  16. 2024Meme-ingful Analysis: Enhanced Understanding of Cyberbullying in Memes Through Multimodal Explanationscited by 13
  17. 2023MEMEX: Detecting Explanatory Evidence for Memes via Knowledge-Enriched Contextualizationcited by 11

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 2; 2025: 9; 2026: 9.

20 papers.

Sort:

By area:

  1. 2024SLM-Mod: Small Language Models Surpass LLMs at Content Moderationcited by 27
  2. 2025Bridging the Safety Gap: A Guardrail Pipeline for Trustworthy LLM Inferencescited by 7
  3. 2025Read as You See: Guiding Unimodal LLMs for Low-Resource Explainable Harmful Meme Detectioncited by 6
  4. 2025LLM-C3MOD: A Human-LLM Collaborative System for Cross-Cultural Hate Speech Moderationcited by 5
  5. 2025Toxicity Begets Toxicity: Unraveling Conversational Chains in Political Podcastscited by 4
  6. 2025Seeing Sarcasm Through Different Eyes: Analyzing Multimodal Sarcasm Perception in Large Vision-Language Modelscited by 4
  7. 2025MGHFT: Multi-Granularity Hierarchical Fusion Transformer for Cross-Modal Sticker Emotion Recognitioncited by 4
  8. 2026PEST: Parameter Efficient Steering of Blackbox VLMs via Agentic Few-shot Alignment for Hateful Meme Moderationcited by 4
  9. 2025MemeSense: An Adaptive In-Context Framework for Social Commonsense Driven Meme Moderationcited by 3
  10. 2025On VLMs for Diverse Tasks in Multimodal Meme Classificationcited by 2
  11. 2026Exploring the Capability Boundaries of LLMs in Mastering of Chinese Chouxiang Languagecited by 2
  12. 2024Bridging Today and the Future of Humanity: AI Safety in 2024 and Beyondcited by 1
8 more
  1. 2025CompAgent: An Agentic Framework for Visual Compliance Verificationcited by 1
  2. 2026CHAIRO: Contextual Hierarchical Analogical Induction and Reasoning Optimization for LLMscited by 0
  3. 2026SafeLens: Deliberate and Efficient Video Guardrails with Fast-and-Slow Screeningcited by 0
  4. 2026FBHM: Functional Benchmarking and Steering of VLMs for Hateful Meme Detectioncited by 0
  5. 2026Computational Humor with Multimodal LLMs: Methods, Datasets, Evaluation, and Challengescited by 0
  6. 2026Beyond Accuracy: A Qualitative Analysis of Vision-Language Models for Hate Speech Detection in Memescited by 0
  7. 2026The Safeguard Worked. Is the LLM System Safer?cited by 0
  8. 2026Learn Before You Judge: Progressive Knowledge-to-Decision Alignment for Explainable Hateful Meme Detectioncited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025From Recognition to Reasoning: Advancing Multimodal Harmful Meme Detection via Chain-of-Thought Alignment
  2. 2025Detecting Offensive Memes with Social Biases in Singapore Context Using Multimodal Large Language Models
  3. 2026MemeLens: Multilingual Multitask VLMs for Memes
  4. 2025AdamMeme: Adaptively Probe the Reasoning Capacity of Multimodal Large Language Models on Harmfulness
  5. 2023A Review of Vision-Language Models and their Performance on the Hateful Memes Challenge
  6. 2024MemeCraft: Contextual and Stance-Driven Multimodal Meme Generation
  7. 2025Detecting and Mitigating Hateful Content in Multimodal Memes with Vision-Language Models
  8. 2025Demystifying Hateful Content: Leveraging Large Multimodal Models for Hateful Meme Detection with Explainable Decisions