OneZero

OneZero is a former publication from Medium about the impact of technology on people and the…

Follow publication

Member-only story

Claims Antifa Embedded in Capitol Riots Come From a Deeply Unreliable Facial Recognition Company

Dave Gershgorn
OneZero
Published in
3 min readJan 7, 2021

Prop-Trump rioters at the Capitol building. Photo: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

Congressman Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, took to the House floor on Wednesday night to spread an increasingly popular conspiracy theory that the pro-Trump mobs that overtook the Capitol building were in fact aligned with antifa.

The claim was based on an anonymous source in a story from the Washington Times, a conservative outlet that has repeatedly pushed conspiracy theories. The source was described as a retired military official who told the newspaper that a facial recognition company called XRVision matched Capitol building rioters to previous images of antifa protesters collected in Philadelphia. (OneZero is not linking to the story to reduce the spread of misinformation.)

The day after OneZero published this story, XRVision provided a statement to BuzzFeed News disavowing any connection to the Washington Times story. The company did, however, acknowledge that it privately circulated an image analysis.

Create an account to read the full story.

The author made this story available to Medium members only.
If you’re new to Medium, create a new account to read this story on us.

Or, continue in mobile web

Already have an account? Sign in

OneZero
OneZero

Published in OneZero

OneZero is a former publication from Medium about the impact of technology on people and the future. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Dave Gershgorn
Dave Gershgorn

Written by Dave Gershgorn

Senior Writer at OneZero covering surveillance, facial recognition, DIY tech, and artificial intelligence. Previously: Qz, PopSci, and NYTimes.

Responses (9)

Write a response

Now that XRVision has issued evidence that some of the men invading the Capitol were Skinheads and Neo-Nazis, are you going to stick to your claim that XRVision is "deeply unreliable", OR, are you going to accept the evidence they gave showing such…

--

You do not really need to discuss the possibility of Antifa causing the riot. There was so much live coverage of all and so many proud pro-Trumpers sharing video footage on the internet of their doing that this is more easily debunked than the myth…

--

It's so hilarious (and kinda sad) to see the right wing actually claiming that it was the LEFT who was responsible for the capitol siege. Of course, they believe it because they all listen to those nutty, satanic QAnon websites telling them that…

--