{"paper":{"title":"MasakhaNEWS: News Topic Classification for African languages","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"cs.CL","authors_text":"Abdul-Hakeem Omotayo, Abdulmejid Johar, Abeeb Afolabi, Abraham Owodunni, Adetola Adeeko, Akintunde Oladipo, Anuoluwapo Aremu, Atnafu Lambebo Tonja, Blessing Sibanda, Bonaventure F. P. Dossou, Brian Odhiambo, Chiamaka Chukwuneke, Chinedu Mbonu, Chris Chinenye Emezue, Christine Mwase, Clemencia Siro, David Ifeoluwa Adelani, Davis David, Doreen Nixdorf, Evrard Ngabire, Freedmore Sidume, Fuad Mire Hassan, Habiba Abdulganiyu, Idris Abdulmumin, Israel Abebe Azime, Ivan Ssenkungu, Iyanuoluwa Shode, Jessica Ojo, Jesujoba Alabi, Jonathan Mukiibi, Jules Jules, Lolwethu Ndolela, Mahlet Taye, Mardiyyah Oduwole, Marek Masiak, Mesay Gemeda Yigezu, Moges Ahmed Mehamed, Muhidin Mohamed, Nnaemeka Obiefuna, Odunayo Ogundepo, Olanrewaju Samuel, Oluwabusayo Awoyomi, Onyekachi Ogbu, Oreen Yousuf, Oyinkansola Awosan, Pamela Nyatsine, Pontus Stenetorp, Saheed Abdullahi Salahudeen, Samuel Fanijo, Sana Al-azzawi, Shafie Mohamed, Shamsuddeen Hassan Muhammad, Sinodos Nigusse, Siyanda Nxakama, Tadesse Kebede, Tajuddeen Gwadabe, Tatiana Moteu, Teshome Mulugeta Ababu, Thina Diko, Toadoum Sari Sakayo, Tolulope Adelani, Tshinu Tshinu, Tunde Ajayi, Ussen Kimanuka, Wangari Kimotho","submitted_at":"2023-04-19T21:12:23Z","abstract_excerpt":"African languages are severely under-represented in NLP research due to lack of datasets covering several NLP tasks. While there are individual language specific datasets that are being expanded to different tasks, only a handful of NLP tasks (e.g. named entity recognition and machine translation) have standardized benchmark datasets covering several geographical and typologically-diverse African languages. In this paper, we develop MasakhaNEWS -- a new benchmark dataset for news topic classification covering 16 languages widely spoken in Africa. We provide an evaluation of baseline models by "},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2304.09972","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2304.09972/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}