We have a new service in our WhatsApp chatbot to help you this holiday season rebut denialist arguments with data: CLIMATE DOUBTS is a new option added to our chatbot so you can ask questions about climate issues and, thanks to artificial intelligence, receive answers based on data and facts drawn from Maldito Clima articles.
How does it work?
To use our new climate chatbot, users just need to save the chatbot’s number on their phone (+34 644 229 319) and write “Hello.” From the menu options that appear, they should select “Climate doubts.”
Users can send their question about climate-related topics—for example, “Is it true that the 15-minute city plan is meant to lock us all in?”—and the bot generates a response using Maldito Clima articles to resolve the doubt.
In addition, the response includes references to the articles used by the bot to generate the answer, so users can click through to our pieces to deepen their understanding. This way, they know exactly where the answer comes from.
To develop the climate chatbot, we used artificial intelligence techniques such as Large Language Models (LLMs). At the end, the chatbot asks users what they thought of the answer and the language used; their feedback helps us continue improving. Click here to go directly to the climate disinformation service in Maldita.es’ WhatsApp chatbot.
So now you know: this holiday season, invite your friends and family to clear up their climate doubts with our climate disinformation service in the Maldita.es WhatsApp chatbot.
How did we build it?
Thanks to the support of the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and its Harnessing AI for Truth program from the ICFJ’s Leap Innovation Lab, Maldita.es has been able to develop this new option within the chatbot with the aim of bringing complete, well-referenced answers closer to our users.
Since we launched the WhatsApp fact-checking chatbot in 2020—the first in Spanish—and alongside the growing impact of climate change, climate disinformation has continued to increase. As an example, during the recent DANA in Valencia and other parts of Spain in October 2024, 558 pieces of potentially disinformative content were identified and sent to the Maldita.es chatbot, leading to 208 articles including debunks, explainers, and investigations.
Throughout this time, Maldita.es has played a key role in the fight against disinformation, using a range of innovative tools—now including our climate chatbot.