Evaluating Bias in Chinese Large Language Models across Tasks and Registers: Task Operationalization Effects and Irony Classification Risks

Abstract

In Chinese content governance, large language models are increasingly used to identify toxic and discriminatory expressions, yet both task operationalization and ironic expression can alter bias measurement readings. We conducted a preregistered multi-task behavioral audit of multiple Chinese large language models. In the content classification experiment, the core panel's classification error rate rose from 10.9% in the formal register to 23.5% in the yinyang (an echoic-irony register) version, a risk difference of +12.7 percentage points. (95% CI [+9.7, +15.7]). Inter-rater agreement was lower in the yinyang register (majority-vote kappa = 0.299), so the increase contains a component of label uncertainty propagation, but the direction of increase was consistent under both adjudicated and majority-vote reference standards. Explicit irony-aware prompts reduced the intervention panel's error rate by 9.6 percentage points. We operationalized the 29 shared proposition anchors into three task forms: social consensus estimation (Form A), high-stakes decision (Form B), and controlled association rating (Form C); independent manipulation checks found that all 58 A-C comparison units received unanimous agreement, whereas the low A-B convergence was confirmed by calibrated majority adjudication (87.8% supporting the minority judgment); on the irony-probe materials, the interactions of B and C relative to A were +0.577 and +1.121, respectively. Thus, when evaluating large language models for Chinese content governance, the effect of task operationalization on bias readings is an empirical question that requires data to answer, and safety evaluation should incorporate the ironic register as a test condition.