Photo allegedly showing an AI-generated congratulatory message from António Guterres is fabricated

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Antonio Guterres
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On January 26, information was spread on Facebook claiming that the Georgian Dream had published a fabricated letter from the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres. The letter congratulates Mikheil Kavelashvili on his appointments to official positions. According to the Facebook post, the fabricated letter was created using a Russian application. The post’s author included a photo in the comments, showing a note at the end of the document that reads: “Содержимое, сгенерированное ИИ” (“Content generated by AI”).

António Guterres

The photo suggesting that António Guterres’s congratulatory letter was generated by artificial intelligence is fabricated. The original document, published by pro-government media and the Georgian Dream on January 25, does not contain such a note.

The congratulatory letter from the UN Secretary-General addressed to Irakli Kobakhidze was published by TV channel Imedi on January 25. The same day, at 2:00 PM, the document was also shown on the news program “Kronika.” It is noteworthy that neither this letter nor the second congratulatory letter, addressed to Mikheil Kavelashvili, contains a Russian note. The document was also shown on the Rustavi 2 TV channel during its January 25 news broadcast.

António Guterres

On January 25, the photo of the document was also published by Interpressnews, based on the Georgian Dream. The photo does not contain the Russian note about artificial intelligence.

António Guterres

Other media outlets, including Public Broadcaster, BM.ge, Radio Liberty, and others, also reported on Guterres’s congratulatory message. The materials did not include the photo, but it was mentioned that the Georgian Dream had distributed it or that their press office had provided it.

Myths Detector reached out to the press office of the Georgian Dream. The documents they sent do not contain such a note.

António Guterres

Thus, the original version of the letters shown by the media does not include the Russian note informing about artificial intelligence generation. It is also worth noting that this congratulatory letter cannot be found in open sources, as such messages are often sent personally to officials. Therefore, Myth Detector cannot confirm or deny the authenticity of the letter. In this regard, Myth Detector contacted the spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General. The material will be updated upon receiving a response.


The article has been written in the framework of Facebook’s fact-checking program. You can read more about the restrictions that Facebook may impose based on this article via this link. You can find information about appealing or editing our assessment via this link.

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Topic: Politics
Country: UN
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