A Context-Aware Dataset for Stance Detection in Bioethical Controversies on Reddit

Abstract:Bioethical debates increasingly unfold on social media, yet stance detection research lacks large-scale, domain-specific resources for modeling such context-dependent discourse. We present BioStance, a context-aware dataset of 39,600 annotated Post-Comment pairs from Reddit bioethical discussions. BioStance covers six controversial targets across three dimensions of bioethical controversy: fundamental value conflicts, individual liberty versus collective responsibility, and technological uncertainty. Each instance preserves hierarchical conversational context and is labeled by three independent annotators using a three-class stance scheme: Favor, Against, and None. The annotations achieve a mean Krippendorff's $\alpha$ of 0.82, indicating substantial reliability. By combining thematic diversity, conversational structure, and high-quality human annotation, BioStance supports research on context-aware stance detection, argument mining, and computational analysis of bioethical discourse.

Computation and Language (cs.CL)

arXiv:2606.13187 [cs.CL]

(or arXiv:2606.13187v1 [cs.CL] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.13187 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.