Claims Antifa Embedded in Capitol Riots Come From a Deeply Unreliable Facial Recognition Company
XRVision also has a track record of spreading conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden
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.
