| --- |
| license: cc-by-nc-4.0 |
| language: |
| - en |
| pretty_name: StanceShift Memes |
| size_categories: |
| - 10K<n<100K |
| tags: |
| - memes |
| - stance |
| - social-simulation |
| - llm-evaluation |
| - multimodal |
| configs: |
| - config_name: memes |
| default: true |
| data_files: |
| - split: train |
| path: memes/** |
| - config_name: white_memes |
| data_files: |
| - split: train |
| path: white_memes/** |
| --- |
| |
| # StanceShift Memes |
|
|
| This dataset holds the rendered memes of the *meme* revision strategy in the paper **Revising Context, Shifting Simulated Stance: Auditing LLM-Based Stance Simulation in Online Discussions** (Findings of EMNLP 2026). |
|
|
| - Paper: [arXiv:2606.06443](https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.06443) |
| - Code and released outputs: [github.com/STARResearchLab/StanceShift](https://github.com/STARResearchLab/StanceShift) |
|
|
| In the meme strategy, a meme replaces the last message from another user (*n<sub>i</sub>*) in a Reddit conversation, and the stance simulator infers the target user's stance under this revised context. Each image in `memes/` is the exact image that the stance simulators (GPT-5.2, Sonnet-4.6, Qwen3.5-Plus) received in the paper. The GitHub repository releases the meme texts and the simulator outputs but not the images. This dataset completes that release. |
|
|
| ## Contents |
|
|
| | Folder | Topic | Images | Conversations | Templates per conversation | |
| |---|---|---:|---:|---:| |
| | `memes/deepseek/` | DeepSeek | 3,934 | 787 | 5 | |
| | `memes/claude/` | Claude | 2,674 | 538 | 5 | |
| | `memes/llama/` | Llama | 2,472 | 495 | 5 | |
| | `memes/nuclear/` | Nuclear energy (Appendix G) | 296 | 296 | 1 | |
| | `memes/keto/` | Keto diet (Appendix G) | 300 | 300 | 1 | |
| | `memes/ubi/` | Universal basic income (Appendix G) | 296 | 296 | 1 | |
| | `memes/spacexipo/` | SpaceX IPO (Appendix G) | 300 | 300 | 1 | |
| | `white_memes/{deepseek,claude,llama}/` | *r_white_meme* ablation (Table 4) | 750 | 150 | 5 | |
|
|
| Only the images that were scored in the paper are included. A few meme texts in the GitHub release have no image here because the image could not be generated. For the additional domains, the template of each conversation is listed in `data/template_ids/{topic}.json` of the GitHub repository. |
|
|
| `white_memes/` holds the *r_white_meme* ablation: the same meme text drawn on a plain white canvas instead of the meme template, for the 50 conversations per topic listed in `data/ablation_ids/` of the GitHub repository. |
|
|
| ## File layout |
|
|
| ``` |
| memes/{topic}/{conv_id}_{template_id}.png |
| memes/metadata.csv |
| white_memes/{topic}/{conv_id}_{template_id}.png |
| white_memes/metadata.csv |
| ``` |
|
|
| `conv_id` matches the conversation ids in the GitHub repository (`data/skeletons/{topic}.jsonl`, `outputs/revisions/{topic}_meme.jsonl`, `outputs/stances/{simulator}/{topic}_meme.csv`). `template_id` is one of `0, 1, 9, 3, 4`, which are meme templates 1 to 5 of Appendix H. The template images are in `meme_templates/` of the GitHub repository. |
|
|
| `metadata.csv` has one row per image with the columns `file_name`, `topic`, `conv_id`, `template_id`, `paper_template` (1 to 5, the numbering of Appendix H), `width`, `height`, `file_size` (bytes) and `sha256`. |
|
|
| ## Usage |
|
|
| The folder layout matches the default `--meme_dir outputs/memes` of the StanceShift pipeline. From the root of the GitHub repository: |
|
|
| ```bash |
| pip install -U huggingface_hub |
| hf download STARResearchLab/StanceShift-memes --repo-type dataset --include "memes/*" --local-dir outputs/ |
| python pipeline/prepare_prompt.py -t deepseek -s meme --revised # stance prompts with the released memes |
| ``` |
|
|
| To download a single topic, use for example `--include "memes/claude/*"`. The images can also be loaded with `datasets`: |
|
|
| ```python |
| from datasets import load_dataset |
| memes = load_dataset("STARResearchLab/StanceShift-memes", "memes", split="train") |
| ``` |
|
|
| ## How the memes were made |
|
|
| For each conversation and template, the revision model (`gemini-3-flash-preview`) wrote the meme text for the positions of the template. The text was then added to the template image with an OpenAI GPT Image model through image editing. The prompts are in Appendix I of the paper and in `pipeline/` of the GitHub repository. The white memes were drawn locally with PIL. The images are kept as generated, including rendering errors such as misspellings or changed layouts. |
|
|
| ## License |
|
|
| The images are released under CC BY-NC 4.0 for research purposes. The memes are derived from third-party meme templates collected from [ImgFlip](https://imgflip.com/memetemplates). The template images are not covered by this license, and their use is subject to the rights of their owners. |
|
|
| ## Responsible use |
|
|
| The memes are controlled probes for auditing how LLM-based stance simulation responds to changes in conversational context. Do not use them to persuade or manipulate real users or to fabricate public opinion. The measured stance shifts are changes in LLM-simulated stance and are not evidence of opinion change in real users. |
|
|
| ## Citation |
|
|
| ```bibtex |
| @inproceedings{zhang2026revising, |
| title = {Revising Context, Shifting Simulated Stance: Auditing {LLM}-Based Stance Simulation in Online Discussions}, |
| author = {Zhang, Xinnong and Shan, Wanting and Lyu, Hanjia and Wei, Zhongyu and Luo, Jiebo}, |
| booktitle = {Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2026}, |
| year = {2026} |
| } |
| ``` |
|
|
