Gender Inference of Twitter Users in Non-English Contexts

Abstract

While much work has considered the problem of latent attribute inference for users of social media such as Twitter, little has been done on non-English-based content and users. Here, we conduct the first assessment of latent attribute inference in languages beyond English, focusing on gender inference. We find that the gender inference problem in quite diverse languages can be addressed using existing machinery. Further, accuracy gains can be made by taking language-specific features into account. We identify languages with complex orthography, such as Japanese, as difficult for existing methods, suggesting a valuable direction for future research.