Social media, within this globalized era, functions as a tool for communication, information, and socialization. This tool is not inherently beneficial, not inherently harmful. The work it does is the work we ask of mirrors and echoes.
Rumors, misinformation, disinformation campaigns and efforts are not new. Their present velocity through social media, however, marks an unprecedented chapter in the history of human communication. Forums conceived for sharing credible narratives have become, increasingly, a crowded stage for miscommunications and fabrications. The bombardment of algorithmic and AI-generated content crafts a space uniquely easy for accessing news, yet increasingly unreliable when consumed passively without corroborations.
Consider vaccination. These platforms could guide communities toward informed, evidence-based decisions about collective care. Instead, political agendas thriving on civilian misinformation command the central stage on platforms like Facebook and X. As noted in The Guardian, rapid circulation of inaccurate claims fuels vaccine mistrust, contributing to the return of once-eradicated, fully preventable diseases.
Under these conditions, urgent questions surface: How do we fight? How do we tackle these narratives? A different methodology is necessary. Ciencia Pa’ Todes (CPT) suggests an interdisciplinary response, one that builds methodological protocols for digging toward truth while speaking our communities’ languages.
Created in 2020 by undergraduate STEM students in Puerto Rico, CPT works to make scientific information accessible in colloquial Caribbean Spanish, to question scientific bias, and to advocate for solutions inclusive to all. This work intentionally integrates, with purpose, topics of race, gender, disability, and sexuality. Such integration allows for engagement, for representation, for breaking through taboos. Questioning and problematizing science remain central to the mission. We acknowledge, for instance, the long history of eugenics within STEM fields. From this acknowledgment, we aim to spark conversations that might drive significant change across diverse communities.
Scientific discoveries and breakthroughs emerge daily. Yet, hegemonic academic hierarchies and pervasive inaccessibility ensure much of that knowledge never reaches the general public. Sometimes, when such knowledge does arrive, its form renders the content incomprehensible.
CPT aims to bridge this gap. Social media becomes the main platform. Through Caribbean-Spanish, through slang, humor, and creativity, we share scientific information rooted in evidence. Doing our best, in these crowded stages, to host a counter-telling.
However, the path has not been smooth. Science offers a constant stream of information, yet a parallel overload of promotional content competes for focus. User attention spans shorten each day. We have all fallen victim to doomscrolling, to the potent appeal of short-form content. This appeal carries a neurological cost. As Walla and Zheng note, “empirical brain imaging evidence [shows] that heavy short-video-based social media use indeed affects attentional brain processes in a negative way.”
This correlation—between fleeting content and a diminished capacity for sustained focus—creates a profound challenge. How to counter viral misinformation when creators often have less than a minute to capture an audience, and within that minute, must forge content that is impactful, reliable, and deeply relatable?
The challenge deepens with the nature of the falsehoods themselves. Misinformation and disinformation behave differently. Misinformation constitutes “fake or misleading information that spreads unintentionally,” while disinformation is “fake or misleading information that spreads intentionally” (Muhammed T. and Mathew). Both thrive in the fast, repetitive, algorithm-driven environment of social media. Both use viral videos and slick graphics to forge echo chambers that are difficult to breach.
CPT confronts this, as I like to name it, in “the criollo way.” Our most successful strategy centers not on disputing falsehoods directly, but on creating more compelling, culturally-rooted truths. We prioritize storytelling, cultural humor, accessible language, and the nuanced use of popular slang. This work rests on an empathetic understanding of community fear and distrust—emotions that misinformation often exploits. Collaborations with local influencers and trusted community leaders expand this reach, lending credibility not just from evidence, but from familiar, respected voices. We build, within the crowded stage, a different kind of echo: one of shared recognition and evidence-based care.
What began as a small team of undergraduate STEM students has become a collective of ten members, bringing diverse backgrounds and professional degrees to this shared work. Growth has been both tangible and pedagogical. In 2025, with support from the María Fund, CPT has elaborated sixty-one posts, reaching over 160,000 views in three months.
The work has expanded beyond social media’s scrolling feeds with the launch of a dedicated website, cienciapatodes.org. This site hosts CPT CONECTA, a database featuring more than fifty Caribbean scientists committed to inclusive and accessible science. Students and other professionals can navigate this directory to see current projects, potential hiring opportunities, and shared identities and values. The goal is connection: to help emerging scientists find mentors they can relate to, figures in which they might see their own futures reflected. This pedagogical reach extends to national conferences, panel discussions, and an award-winning science communication course taught at Brown University.
The work now also turns toward future generations. CPT has published our first children’s book, La exploradora científica (“The Scientific Explorer”). The book is about a young girl named Amaya who is a curious girl who loves exploring her island, but she often feels bored in school, especially in science class, which feels distant from her life and home. Everything changes when an unexpected adventure sparks a lifelong love for science. This project aims to inspire Caribbean youth, to seed early the possibility of scientific pursuit as a path for their own curiosity. The book is available for purchase in https://cienciapatodes.org/libro , and with every purchase, we will donate a book to different organizations around Puerto Rico. We’ve already donated nearly 100 books, and we’re just getting started. Join us in making an even bigger impact by sharing with family and friends!
Beyond digital and pedagogical spaces, the collective’s commitment moves into material advocacy. CPT has joined grassroots movements, aligning with the advocacy for Puerto Rico’s Bill 1282. This legislation establishes public policy against racial discrimination based on various protective hairstyles and afro hair textures in public services, employment, education, and housing, across both public and private sectors. We collaborated with Colectivo Resistencia Cimarrona (CRC) to discuss the social pressures and health risks associated with hair-straightening treatments. We also used the space to raise awareness about Bill 1282 and informed the community about how they could advocate in support of it. The bill’s successful enactment into law in the summer of 2024 stands as a testament to the kind of change forged when scientific advocacy recognizes that the body, its presentation, and its freedom are inseparable from a just and accessible scientific future. Here, the fight against misinformation joins the fight for bodily autonomy—both requiring a re-telling of what is true, what is right, and what belongs.
In an effort to meet our community beyond the digital feed, we sought connection in shared physical space. In September 2025, we joined a panel at the Expo De Aquí Nadie Nos Saca, engaging directly with the public on politics, education, and feminism in Puerto Rico. We value these exchanges—these moments where dialogue moves from comment threads to embodied conversation. They are necessary for growth across mediums, for reaching audiences where they are, in all the forms they inhabit.
Today, we reclaim these platforms. We reclaim social media as a tool of resistance against misinformation and disinformation, wielding it to amplify voices too often marginalized within scientific narratives. CPT demonstrates that content can be both rigorously educational and culturally resonant, grounded not in a singular truth, but in the multiple, intersecting truths of our communities. Our method is this: to educate, to advocate, and to inspire through storytelling fortified by evidence. Even our created merchandise extends this purpose, becoming wearable testimony to a shared set of values, a tool for broadening community and influence.
This work understands a fundamental principle: truth may travel slower than falsehood, but trust travels deeper. When trust is built from the community and for the community, its impact, like a well-tended root, can nourish generations to come.
References:
Guardian staff. “Junk Science, Vaccine Refusers and the Return of Smallpox: What Worries One of Australia’s Top Epidemiologists.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 18 Jan 2026, www.theguardian.com/science/2025/may/19/junk-science-vaccine-refusers-and-the-return-of-smallpox-what-worries-one-of-australias-top-epidemiologists.
Muhammed T, Sadiq, and Saji K Mathew. “The disaster of misinformation: a review of research in social media.” International journal of data science and analytics vol. 13,4 (2022): 271-285. doi:10.1007/s41060-022-00311-6
Walla, Peter, and Yu Zheng. “Intense Short-Video-Based Social Media Use reduces the P300 Event-Related Potential Component in a Visual Oddball Experiment: A Sign for Reduced Attention.” Life (Basel, Switzerland) vol. 14,3 290. 22 Feb. 2024, doi:10.3390/life14030290