Coalition MPs Craig Kelly and George Christensen have spread misinformation that the insurrectionist mob that stormed the US Capitol included members of the Antifa group.
As the Australian prime minister Scott Morrison declined to repudiate misinformation about the US election from within his government, the pair both shared an article claiming facial recognition had identified far-left protesters in the mob.
That claim has been rejected by XRVision, the technology company cited as its source, has been proved false by independent fact-checkers The Dispatch and has been labelled false on Facebook.
On Thursday, Christensen shared the Washington Times article claiming to have identified a Stalinist sympathiser in the crowd based on a tattoo. The Nationals MP remarked on Facebook, “well this is something”.
XRVision has said that the article was “outright false, misleading, and defamatory” and it had in fact identified two members of a neo-Nazi group. It asked the Washington Times for a full correction and retraction.
But when the post was labelled “false” by Facebook, Christensen posted that “ANOTHER FAKE FACEBOOK FACT CHECK IS POLLUTING MY PAGE”.
“The fake fact check talks about some guy with horns. I mention nothing relating to that. Facebook need to stop this censorship.”
Christensen later argued that “when people are angry because they think no one is listening, social media’s Orwellian response is probably not the best way of dealing with things”.
Christensen also posted a link to a video in which a woman in the capitol mob claims that a rioter attempting to break a window is “Antifa” and “not us”.
On his Facebook, Kelly criticised Twitter for applying a warning label to Donald Trump’s video in which he falsely claimed the election was “fraudulent” and the insurrectionist mob were “very nice people”.
Kelly said the warning label “falsely implied he was inciting violence” when Trump had said “we have to have peace”.
Kelly posed a rhetorical question about which is “the greater threat to democracy”: the Trump supporters; the “social media giant censoring and shutting down the account of a democratically elected leader”; or “neo-fascists and Marxists engaged in a highly co-ordinated ‘false flag’ operation, by infiltrating the protest and invading the parliament so the world’s media would falsely blame and discredit Trump supporters”.
Kelly defended the actions of the mob, arguing they were “a small group of protestors over-doing it, and invading a parliament for a short period of time, and then leaving, enabling the parliament to recommence shortly after”.
Kelly’s post had received 3,600 reactions, 1,200 comments and 1,000 shares by Friday morning.
On Thursday the Labor leader, Anthony Albanese, criticised government MPs for claiming the US election was fraudulent, saying they had backed “QAnon conspiracies” and “rhetoric that has led to the quite catastrophic things that we have seen today in Washington DC”.
On Friday the shadow health minister, Chris Bowen, said while everyone had a right to their views “we have to be clear and condemn violence”.
Christensen and Kelly have a track record of amplifying baseless claims of US election fraud to garner a following in the Australia far right.
Asked on Thursday whether he would condemn such misinformation in his government, Morrison told reporters “there’s such a thing as freedom of speech in this country and that will continue”.
Morrison said he was hoping for a peaceful transfer of power in the US and condemned rioters for “terribly distressing” acts of violence, but declined to criticise Trump for continuing to lie about having won the election.
Morrison’s predecessor, the Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, criticised his response as “a bit weak” and “a bit tepid” in comparison to condemnation from other world leaders.
Albanese was much more direct in his response to what he labelled “effectively an insurrection”, saying there was “no doubt that both the words and actions of Donald Trump have encouraged this activity”.
