Since the January 6 intrusion into the Capitol, seat of the American legislative power, supporters of Donald Trump have tried to make believe that the insurgents would be “Antifas”, (anti-fascist activists) disguised.
The Washington Times, tabloid not to be confused with the very serious Washington post, brought water to their mill, claiming that“A facial recognition firm maintains that antifas have infiltrated the demonstrators who invaded the Capitol”. The article was widely relayed to France, for example by Silvano Trotta, influential relay of Anglophone conspiracy theories and support of Trump.
But this publication of Washington Times has since been completely changed. And for good reason: the cited company, XRVision, denounced its content “Completely false, misleading and defamatory”, in a statement sent to another local newspaper, Washington Examiner, and demanded its withdrawal as well as a public apology.
The image analysis company states that it has indeed identified individuals, but none is associated with anti-fascist movements. Two of them, Jason Tankersley (who denies being present) and Matthew Heimbach, were linked to neo-Nazi groups and parties, and the third, Jake Angeli, to the conspiratorial QAnon movement.
The Washington Times admitted his mistake, apologized, and after temporarily taking his article offline, reposted it with a new title (“Correction: facial recognition identifies extremists invading the Capitol”) and the mention of the fact that no antifa had been recognized.
