About Company

An independent platform specialized in verification and news scrutiny, which aims to resist the flow of false or misleading news, whether it is deliberately published for the purposes of political or ideological bias, or accidentally for the purposes of attracting the public to pages or sites spreading rumors.

Who We Are

Our platform was launched in April of 2018, and initially focused on false news in Egypt, then our activity expanded to include various Arab countries, at the hands of a group of independent journalists and researchers.

The platform is not affiliated with any political party, or press publishing organization. Motassadeq focuses in particular on resisting news that aims to spread hatred, or that entrenches socially negative concepts against women, minorities, and others.

First Stage: Choosing the Subject to Verification

• The work team begins daily by scanning the materials in order to submit proposals in the first working hours every morning, in addition to receiving materials or verification requests through public messages through our various digital platforms or through e-mail.

• It is ascertained that the news to be verified is in itself correct, meaning to verify whether the journalist or politician explaining the investigation really said those phrases?

• The editors sort the proposed materials and classify them to assign the team to work on them.

Priority material standards include:

A- It is related to the public interest, such as false scientific information related to the Corona vaccine, for example.

B- Exclusivity, meaning that it has not been previously corrected on our platform or other platforms operating in the same field.

C- Certainty, that is, the correction should not include aspects that mix with personal estimates and opinions, or informational aspects that cannot be proven true or false by reliable sources.

d- Consistency with values ​​the platform supports, such as women's rights, freedom of expression, or minorities.

G- Extent of the spread of the rumor, for example, a rumor that has not received any republishing can be ignored, while it is necessary to react as quickly as possible to a rumor that has been circulated hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of times, and a tool provided by Facebook is used for documented verification pages, revealing what is “ Trend” now, with the aim of quickly checking it from the site’s partners, and quickly reporting and deleting it.


Phase Two: Verification

The team checks the required news and writes that information and results, through the following means:

1- Returning to primary and not secondary sources, for example viewing the entire text of the draft law and not quoting a lawyer who publishes his analysis, or direct contact with an international company to obtain information about its government contract.

2- We use Google's "deep search" mechanisms, such as time span, reverse image search, and others.

3- We may use “open source” tools to verify if the subject requires them to use them, including “location” or “aircraft flight tracking”

4- We may use technical procedures that require analysis of images or videos to detect tampering.

5- We may consult technical experts, such as consulting a specialist doctor regarding the Corona vaccine.


Phase Three: Fact-Checking and Editing

• A senior editor is responsible for reviewing the article, and challenging every detail in it, in order to make sure that no errors occur, and it may return to the article writer for discussion or clarification.

• The editor tries to stick to the "thickening" element to shorten posts or "script" the video.

• The editor-in-chief or whoever resists it assumes the role of ensuring that the process runs smoothly, as well as checking the facts for the third time himself if there are materials that may require it, especially with political dimensions.

• Editing includes adjusting the language, making sure that there are no grammatical or spelling errors. This includes if the material is written in colloquial Egyptian, which in turn has rules like any language.


Phase Four: Publication

* Every day a specialized colleague publishes content on our various platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and our website.

* We may use paid advertising within our capabilities.

* News is categorized for archiving in the required system on the website according to several patterns to make it easier for the public to access materials in all images, whether by country, or by sections (politics, society, sports..etc), or according to public figures received, or according to the approved news classification we've got. (False, Segmented, etc.)


Phase Five: Periodic Evaluation and Training

• Periodic meetings are held to evaluate work and share experiences internally.

• The evaluation includes quantitative criteria (numbers of visits and viewers) as well as qualitative criteria (analysis of the audience's speech in comments and messages), and the team agrees on the best ways to respond.

• Members are trained as soon as there is anything new to learn collectively.

Stage Six: Complaints

If we receive complaints about any published material, whether on page messages or on e-mail, we are dealt with immediately and very seriously, and if an error is established on our part, we are committed to deleting the wrong material, apologizing to the affected party, and publishing the correction