A facial recognition company says a Washington Times viral story claiming to have identified antifa members among the crowd that broke into the Capitol on Wednesday is completely untrue.
XRVision told BuzzFeed News that it asked the conservative medium for a retraction and an apology for the story, which was quoted in the House of Representatives after the riot on Wednesday by Florida Republican MP Matt Gaetz, a fervent supporter of Trump.
On Wednesday, the Washington Times published a story that stated that XRVision “used its software to do facial recognition of protesters and combined two Philadelphia Antifa members with two men within the Senate”. He claimed that one man “has a tattoo that indicates he is a Stalinist sympathizer” and the other “is someone who appears in climate protests and Black Lives Matter in the West”. The story did not cite the men or provide evidence that they were involved in antifa, a decentralized group of “anti-fascists” who participate in protests in the United States and which the right tends to use as a bogeyman.
A lawyer representing XRVision, who claims to have been founded in 2015 in Singapore, issued a statement to BuzzFeed News refuting the Washington Times story. The statement said the XRVision software actually identified two members of neo-Nazi organizations and a QAnon supporter among the pro-Trump crowd – not antifa members.
“Our lawyer is in contact with the Washington Times and has instructed them to ‘Cease and desist’ from any complaints about the origin of the XRVision analysis, withdraw current complaints and publish an apology,” said the statement.
The story was published with the title “Facial recognition company claims that antifa infiltrated trump protesters who invaded the Capitol” and quickly went viral. Prominent supporters of Trump and the right-wing media spread unsubstantiated allegations about antifa’s involvement in the Capitol violation on Wednesday.
The Washington Times said it received a copy of the XRVision antifa photo combination by a “retired military officer”. But XRVision said it has no idea who this source might be and added that the alleged combination of photos is false.
“XRVision did not generate any composition or detection image for the Washington Times or for a ‘retired military officer’ and did not authorize them to make such representations,” the statement said.
“The image analyzes we performed were distributed to a handful of individuals for private consumption and not for publication. XRVision prides itself on the accuracy of its technology and considers the Washington Times publication to be totally false, misleading and defamatory. ”
The Washington Times did not immediately respond to a request for comment.