One of the more grimly amusing attempts by right-wing media to spin yesterday’s events was a story in
The Washington Times which claimed that ‘antifa infiltrators’ were responsible for the mayhem.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/group-behind-gaetzs-antifa-mob-claim-say-its-a-lie?ref=home?ref=homeAccording to a scoop by Times reporter Rowan Scarborough, proof positive of this theory was a claim that an obscure facial recognition company called XRVision had identified some of the rioters as left-wing antifa agitators including one “Stalinist sympathiser”.
Scarborough’s article was based entirely on an interview with an anonymous “retired military officer” who claimed to have seen XRVision data that proved two of the rioters were members of “Philadelphia Antifa.” The story didn’t include any pictures of the supposed antifa infiltrators or other evidence.
Some right-wing echo chambers such as Fox News host Laura Ingraham began trying to push this as a ‘developing’ story in a tweet recirculated more than 35,000 times, and Fox host Tucker Carlson also devoted part of his segment to denouncing the danger of ‘antifa violence’.
GOP congressmen such as Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Al) tweeted it, and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fl) even cited
the Washington Times story on the House floor during the electoral vote count last night.
But XRVision, the company at the center of the story, says the Times story is totally made up. In a statement provided by the company’s attorney, XRVision said its facial recognition software had in fact identified two neo-Nazis and a QAnon supporter.
“We concluded that two of [the] individuals (Jason Tankersley and Matthew Heimbach), were affiliated with the Maryland Skinheads and the National Socialist Movements,” the statement reads. “These two are known Nazi organizations, they are not Antifa. The third individual identified (Jake Angeli) was an actor with some QAnon promotion history. Again, no Antifa identification was made for him either.”
XRVision have demanded a retraction and an apology from
The Washington Times.