Government’s AI fact-checker drops image verification a day after launch
The government’s Chat Egypt platform disabled its image-verification feature on Tuesday without explaining why, less than a day after the Cabinet’s Media Center announced its launch at the opening of Egypt Forum 2026 on Monday. The platform was introduced to verify information and combat rumors using AI, covering both news reports and images.
The government platform describes itself on its official website as “a platform that uses advanced AI technologies to help verify images and news.” It says it aims to “build public awareness based on reliable information by analyzing official sources and verifying visual and written content in real time.”
Chat Egypt is the latest addition to the state’s long-running effort to counter what officials describe as “information warfare.” For more than a decade, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has repeatedly described fake news and online rumors as a threat to national security. That framing is reflected in the Cabinet Media Center’s regular “rumor-busting” bulletins, which routinely deny reports circulating outside official channels. While this crusade has justified sweeping cybercrime laws and the silencing of independent fact-checkers like Matsadaash.
Before using the government platform, users must agree to its terms and conditions. The platform warns that its answers and outputs “may contain omissions and inaccuracies” and that they “do not create any legal obligation for the Information and Decision Support Center or its affiliated entities.”
The platform offers users the option to verify “any news story in seconds,” while its image and video verification feature is now inactive and marked “Coming soon.”
However, that feature was working when the government platform first launched and remained active until Tuesday morning.
Before it was disabled, the FactCheckar initiative posted on Facebook that the platform’s image and video verification feature was not working properly.
The initiative said it tested the platform by submitting an AI-generated image showing the Pink Panther attending sessions at Egypt Forum 2026 alongside El-Sisi. Chat Egypt failed to identify the Pink Panther in the image.
Al Manassa also tested the government platform, submitting a series of questions about economic and political issues, including the dollar exchange rate, the possible deployment of Egyptian troops to Saudi Arabia, and the arrest of journalists from the fact-checking platform Matsadaash.
The platform was asked whether the dollar had risen against the Egyptian pound. It took about seven seconds to respond that it had verified the information through unofficial news sources and that the dollar had indeed risen to 51 pounds on Aug. 31, citing earlier coverage by Sada El-Balad and Cairo 24.
However, a report published by Sada El-Balad on Tuesday said the dollar was approaching 54.50 pounds. Chat Egypt did not mention that report.
Al Manassa then asked Chat Egypt about a decision to deploy Egyptian military forces to Saudi Arabia. It responded that the claim had neither been confirmed nor denied, citing reports published by Al-Shorouk and Sada El-Balad in July and August about joint military exercises. The platform also returned a May video from Extra News showing El-Sisi and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed inspecting a fighter jet detachment in the United Arab Emirates.
When asked whether reports that Egypt ranked near the bottom of the press freedom index were accurate, Chat Egypt took about six seconds to respond that it could neither confirm nor deny the claim because no information was available on the subject.
This response came despite widespread controversy over the arrest of Matsadaash journalists.
Egypt ranks 169th out of 180 countries on the 2026 World Press Freedom Index and remains among the world’s 10 worst jailers of journalists according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In March 2024, the Journalists Syndicate criticized the continued blocking of several news websites, including Mada Masr and Al Manassa, which have been blocked 13 times, most recently in July 2022, even as authorities lifted blocks on other sites, including Darb, Al-Sulta Al-Rabaa, Zat Misr, and Misr 360.