Clash of the Typings - Finding Controversies and Children's Topics Within Queries

The TadPolemic system identifies whether web search queries 1 are controversial in nature and/or 2 pertain to children's topics. We are incorporating it into a children's web search engine to assist children's search during difficult topics, as well as to provide filtering or mitigation of bias in results when children search for contentious topics. We show through an evaluation that the system is effective at detecting kids' topics and controversies for a broad range of topics. Though designed to assist children, we believe these methods are generalizable beyond young audiences and can be usefully applied in other contexts.