On 20 September 2019 a number of dispersed protests erupted in Egypt after a protest call by the contractor and actor Muhammad Ali who accused President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and his government of corruption. Hours before the demonstrations started the Supreme Council for Media Regulation published a report entitled “Blocking and fining are the punishments of publishing rumors in the media”. The report was a reiteration of the disciplinary measures of the Council. Article 17 of the measures ruled that the Council has the right to punish any newspaper or media outlet or electronic website that publishes or broadcasts false news or rumors, and that reported information published on the social media without verification. Article 17 sets the fine’s upper ceiling at no more than EGP 250 thousand or the equivalent in foreign currencies. The Council also has the right to ban a page, program, website for a certain period of time or permanently. Actually, some news websites were blocked in Egypt on 22 September 2010 after covering the protests. Readers found it difficult to reach certain websites like the BBC Arabic and Al-Hurra. According to the BBC, and after a phone call with Makram Muhammad Ahmed (head of the Council), Makram admitted that it is possible that the authorities had blocked some news websites including BBC Arabic. He added that he was not yet officially informed of the names of the blocked websites, however his preliminary information is that some news websites were blocked because they had published inaccurate information on the protests.