A news store that reported that a face recognition company had identified members of Antifa among the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol has now apologized and made a correction. However, screenshots with the original report are still circulating on social media.
The Washington Times quoted an unnamed “retired military officer” on Jan. 6 as saying that the XRVision, the Singapore-based startup, matched the faces of two men spotted earlier in the day with Antifa members from Philadelphia. The newspaper said it was also provided with the photo contests, which they said were a “Stalinist sympathizer” and “someone who shows up during protests against the climate and Black Lives Matter”. Looks like these photos were not printed.
These claims were widely circulated on Facebook (here, here, here, here) and reached out to Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, who quoted them on the House floor (here). He later also shared the article on his Facebook and Twitter accounts (here, here ).
The Washington Times corrected and changed the original article (here). A correction note reads: “In an earlier version of this story, it was wrongly said that XRVision facial recognition software identified Antifa members among rioters who stormed the Capitol on Wednesday. XRVision has not identified any Antifa members. The Washington Times apologizes to XRVision for the mistake. ”
XRVision was apparently founded in 2015 (here) and has a website with only a slogan and an email address (www.xrvision.com/). XRVision was not immediately available for comment at Reuters’ request.
VERDICT
Untrue. The Washington Times rewrote its article to say that a face recognition company did not identify any Antifa members in the images of the January 6 storm of the US Capitol.
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