Maldita.es editorial team's favorite superpowered collaborations

At Maldita.es, we are lucky to have an incredible community: thousands of people who warn us about hoaxes through WhatsApp and help us viralize the truth, nearly 50,000 “malditas” and “malditos” who are part of our community, almost 1,000 ambassadors who help us financially sustain our work, and more than 2,600 “malditas” and “malditos” who have lent their superpowers, expert knowledge to fight against hoaxes. Thanks to them, we are more effective against disinformation. To celebrate 1,000 collaborations with our community of superpowered “malditas” and “malditos”, we asked the editorial team about their favorite collaborations. Although it’s impossible to dedicate a few words to each of these 1,000 collaborations, each one has been essential to our work.

You can also be part of this community: your superpowers are those topics you know a lot about, what you study, or are curious about and have a knowledge base. You can share them with us by becoming “maldito/a” here.

Andrés Jiménez, coordinator of Maldito Bulo

I really liked the collaboration with the “maldito” Enrique García in the article What do we know about the demolition of the Bridge of Holes built in the 13th century in Tournai (Belgium) because it was a very specific case that required knowledge in both history and French, and we just found Enrique, who is a crack in both.

Yuly Jara, editor of Maldito Dato

Thanks to the “malditos/as” who lend us their superpowers, we can turn to sources and knowledge that would otherwise be very difficult for us to access, as was the case with Lara Trujillo, who helped us contextualize the risk posed by asbestos present in public health centers in Madrid.

Joselu Zafra, editor of Maldita Ciencia

I loved collaborating with Jorge Barros, an airline pilot, on this topic about why some airplane routes take much longer (or much less). He provided us with original flight plans and high-altitude wind maps for the Madrid-Bogotá route, in which he had taken the trouble to cover up sensitive information and explain the meaning of each element. After that, we had collaborations with him on aviation articles, where he always offered to answer questions and even ask colleagues in the cabin who knew more than him.

Paula Quintana, coordinator of Maldito Feminismo

I fondly remember Ana Bazo Burguera, a “maldita” Arabic philologist who helped me a lot with a topic about the hijab in Egypt. Especially because I had the topic stalled and did not have sources to respond to me, and she shed a lot of light on the topic and also served to know what other threads to pull. Moreover, I think it was the first time we contacted her, and she was very pleased. She even asked her colleagues for those little things she didn’t know. I remember her with a lot of affection.

Luisa Bernal, editor of Maldito Bulo

In May 2021, many videos went viral, supposedly showing how magnets could stick to the area of the arm where people had received the COVID-19 vaccine injection. These videos accused the vaccine of containing magnetic materials. To debunk it, Gabriel Alfranca Ramón not only explained to us why this was not possible but also conducted a small experiment in the laboratory to demonstrate it along with his colleague Yilian. The “malditas” and “malditos” are very strong!

Bea Lara, Community Coordinator

When we started on Twitch and Discord, I had no idea how those platforms worked. Two “malditos” who faithfully followed us on Twitch, Wololo and g2PedroSanchez, who are also “malditos” with superpowers, helped me set up the Discord server and explained everything I needed to know not to get lost on that platform. And well, Wololo brightens our days with his memes on our server.

I also fondly remember the «malditos» and «malditas» who participated in our Christmas campaign of shared superpowers, sharing their experiences as «malditos» with us. Paula, Miguel, Inés, and Roger are some of the «malditos» who have collaborated most with us in recent years and helped us put into perspective the value of superpowers for those who collaborate. I can’t fail to mention the first «maldito» who collaborated with his superpowers, Rubén Pulido, who is always there when we need to resolve a doubt about ophthalmology.

Coral García, editor of Maldito Bulo

Although scams and cyber scams are, unfortunately, commonplace and many articles are published about the new fraud circulating, affected people usually do not have answers to such simple questions as: «What can I do in these cases?» or if it is possible to recover the lost money. Therefore, I consider the help that the «malditos» Susana Alwasity and Miguel Vieito Villar always provide us on these topics to be fundamental.

Fermín Grodira, editor of Maldito Clima…

There are «malditos» who not only teach you what they know but are capable of conducting experiments and recording them just to collaborate with Maldita. This was the case with Óscar Lázaro, an engineer and materials expert, who to prove that aluminum foil prolongs the life of batteries went as far as to interpose a piece of aluminum foil on the poles and wrap the battery to measure the volts and amperes.

…and from Maldito Bulo

To fight disinformation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the “malditos” have been key. The O Team helped a lot. A particularly interesting case is that of Hugo Rodríguez, an expert in photography and image, who analyzed a video of Zelensky recorded in Kiev that they said to be fake because he had supposedly fled. Through numerous elements of the video, we were able to verify that it was not manipulated as claimed.

Laura G. Merino, editor (and in charge) of Maldita Ciencia

I fondly remember a couple of endearing situations with one of our «malditas», Mar Fernández, president of the Egg Studies Institute: there was one occasion when we contacted her using her personal email, with which she was registered in our community, but also through the contact email of the institution she presides over (without realizing that, ‘surprise!’, it was the same person). When she wrote to us, the laughter was guaranteed.

Additionally, at the end of 2021, Mar attended an event in which Maldita Alimentación participated and, at the end, approached to exchange a few words and ‘de-virtualize’ us. It was great!

And if there’s someone who is always, always, always on the ball when it comes to food technology, that’s Lorenzo Mingallón (that is, a food technologist): his speed, clarity, and willingness to collaborate with us is tremendous. Many kisses and hugs from here!

Jose Molina, editor of Maldito Dato

I really liked the collaboration of this “maldito” who contributed his assessment as a data protection expert to clarify whether the publication of candidates’ ID documents constituted an infringement and evaluated the responses of the Ministry of the Interior and other experts.

Isabel Rubio, editor of Maldita Ciencia

Among our star “malditos” are Amaia Ochoa de Amezaga, an expert in neurosciences, and José Ángel Morales, a doctor in neurobiology at the Faculty of Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid. While Ochoa has explained to us why we kiss and what benefits it has and why there are people who cannot visualize mental images, Morales has told us why we are ticklish and babies perceive it differently than adults and why sometimes a hand or foot falls asleep and what is the fastest way to make it go away.

Vivian Rangel, Maldita Educa

In Maldita Educa, we mainly use superpowers during our Twitcherías. The «maldito» José Antonio Rodríguez recently gave us a master class on the importance of correctly indicating advertising on social networks.

Another special collaboration we had was with the «maldito» Sergio Lasheras, a computer scientist specialized in video games, who participated in a Twitch we did on games and education. Sergio, who is a charm, offered to test educational games, gave us the keys to how educational games should be to engage children, and showed us a specific app for kids to create games. His dual perspective as a professional and gamer was loved by us (and also by the chat, which was particularly participative that day).

Rubén Díaz, editor of Maldito Dato

The Mar Menor crisis had many edges, as on the one hand, there was the environmental problem and on the other, the competencies, which were not at all clear. Luckily, the lawyer Miguel Vieito helped us untangle the mess of responsibilities and Carmen Martínez helped us better understand the peculiarities of the Iberian southeast, as she is an expert in the biodiversity of this area.

Maribel Ángel-Moreno, Maldito Clima editor

The «maldito» Ignacio Gómez, an expert in stock markets and capital markets, explained to us how the foreign exchange market works in a couple of emails. Few people express themselves as well as to make something so complex easy and close.

Naiara Bellio, Maldita Tecnología coordinator

If they ask me to talk about a «maldito/a» to whom I have affection for all the help they give us in Maldita Tecnología, the name that automatically comes to mind is Paula González. Piece by piece, she helps us with her superpowers in cybersecurity and explains everything to us clearly, crystal clear. Being able to turn to her day after day is a gift (in the world of journalists and true disseminators it really is). Thanks and hugs from here, Paula! This was her first collaboration.

Even so, I’m not going to miss the opportunity to talk about an article that I wrote with the help of one of our «malditos» and with which I had a great time. It’s this piece on how filters work on platforms like Instagram or TikTok. David Castillo is a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Intelligent Systems and Numerical Applications in Computing (SIANI) of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and explained to me how neural networks behind this technology work as if it were a personalized class. With sample images, edited for our article… That’s dedication! And thanks to it, I was able to explain it to the little people who read us. It’s priceless.

These are just a few examples of the collaborations that, over the last three years, the «malditos» and «malditas» have carried out with their superpowers. All the collaborations that the community makes with Maldita.es are essential for our work to move forward: from your alerts on WhatsApp to the spread of our debunkings. And, of course, the financial support of the Maldita.es ambassadors. If you also want to be part of the superpowers community of Maldita.es, you can share them with us by becoming «maldito/a» here.