We became a Foundation! After almost two years and the support of more than 1,600 malditos and malditas we achieved one of our biggest goals: to be a non-profit foundation to be stronger against lies, remain independent and go one step further in our transparency. And most importantly, to belong to everyone.
Although there is a pandemic and since 10 March our team has not returned to the offices, we have grown stronger, we have new members and we continue working so that you are not fooled.
The work of our sections
The pandemic came accompanied by tons of disinformation: in 2020 we carried out 1,525 debunks, 64% more hoaxes than the previous year. In addition, we created a special site with all the debunks, articles and questions about coronavirus, so that you could have all the verified information in one place.
2020 also showed us that science is more important than ever and the work carried out by our section Maldita Ciencia was recognized with four awards: Prisma Casa de las Ciencias a la Divulgación Científica 2020 for best new media, first prize in the journalism category of the Afectivo Efectivo awards, second prize in the Fotón Emitido category of the Premios Fotón awarded by the CSIC and the Premio de Periodismo Científico Concha García Campoy in the Digital Press category.
In addition to the recognitions, our work has also had great impact: our section Maldito Dato continues to hold all political parties accountable and create tools and explanations to understand coronavirus data, along with the exhaustive follow-up of investigations into the VAT on masks and the committee of experts for the phases of de-escalation.
Since February we have had a new section, Maldita Tecnología, which during this year has been dedicated to explaining and giving us simple and understandable information to make responsible use of technology, because, as we say, online life is real life.
We do not forget the section with which Maldita.es was born, Maldita Hemeroteca, which every day finds historical documents and statements with which we can understand and contrast what our politicians say.
Our projects Maldita Migración and Maldito Feminismo have not stopped either: during these months of the pandemic they have continued fighting with data and facts the disinformation related to migrant and refugee populations and all those lies about gender.
Although at the beginning of the pandemic we did not know how we were going to continue with our media literacy project, Maldita Educa, we managed to go even further. This year we were able to be in more than one hundred workshops, conferences and talks sharing everything we know about disinformation and how to combat it with children, young people, students, journalists, public and private institutions.
We also have technological news: internally we have improved many of our processes to better study disinformation and externally we created a tool that brings us closer to our entire community and stops disinformation even faster: our WhatsApp Chatbot.
https://twitter.com/malditobulo/status/1305954645710442496?s=20
Every day, since we launched it in June, we receive more than 1,000 messages a day in this service that has been used by more than 20,000 users. 95% of those people continue using it to send us alerts of possible disinformation in any format, receive the most important debunks of the day in text or audio or our media literacy content.
Among the growth we have experienced this year we have also incorporated a projects and impact team that has allowed us to go further: we launched a campaign in more than 5,000 bus shelters throughout Spain about the use of masks, we collaborated with media in Latin America to carry out detailed coverage of the debates and election night in the United States, among dozens of things that bring us closer and closer to our community
We also added a Public Policy team that will allow us to get closer to decision-makers and politicians to provide them with advice and recommendations on disinformation and the work we do at Maldita.es. This effort is related to the addition of an Academia team that will allow us to work more closely with researchers and universities to study disinformation and better understand what we are facing.
If you are a follower of Maldita.es you will have noticed a change in our image: we have left Paint behind and now we have a design and social media team that allows us to create more and better formats so that they are accessible to everyone. We have even joined TikTok with videos in youth formats to combat disinformation.
https://twitter.com/maldita_es/status/1322211156036067328?s=20
The community that makes Maldita.es possible
Our community is what makes all this possible. We close this 2020 with 46,500 malditos and malditas who help us by reporting disinformation, receive our newsletters and share verified content. In addition, more than 2,400 people have lent us their superpowers to fight disinformation and more than 1,000 people have become ambassadors by contributing money so that we can continue.
At Maldita.es we do not have paywalls, nor do we receive advertising income, because we believe that information must be for everyone. If you want to support our work you can register at this link.
We know that to contribute to an organization it is important that you know where its money comes from and what it spends it on, which is why we also update our accounts and always have them available on our website.
Once again, thank you for joining and working together with us in the fight against disinformation.