FALSE: Antifa flyer urges patriot disguise for riots after U.S. election 2020

At a glance:

• Claim: An Antifa flyer urges leftist groups to disguise themselves as patriots or supporters of President Donald Trump for riots on November 4, a day after the US election.
• Rating: FALSE
• The facts: This flyer started circulating as early as 2017. Fact checkers also found no evidence of a connection between the flyer and Antifa groups.
• Why we fact-checked this: Posts containing this claim were spotted through social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle.

Complete details:

Facebook users posted a photo of a flyer that they claim to be a call to Antifa – short for anti-fascist – to disguise themselves as supporters of President Donald Trump for riots on Wednesday, November 4, a day after the US election.

The Antifa is a loose coalition of leftist activists who protest against racism and far-right values.

The flyer read, “Antifa Comrades! On Nov. 4, don’t forget to disguise yourselves as patriots/Trump supporters: wear MAGA hats, USA flags, 3%er insignias, a convincing police uniform is even better! This way police and patriots responding to us won’t know who their enemies are, and onlookers and the media will think there are Trump supporters rioting so it’s harder to turn popular opinion against us!”

It was also shown in a blog published on November 3. The blog read, “A source that has always been reliable was able to photograph an Antifa flyer.”

Posts containing this claim were spotted through social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle.

This claim is false. The flyer has been in circulation as early as 2017.

While Antifa supporters are reportedly planning a wave of protests as the election ends, the flyer used in the claim could not have been created for the 2020 election since it was already being posted online in 2017. Reverse image search showed that it was posted in 2017 on websites as well as in tweets.

The alleged “civil war” planned by the Antifa on November 4, 2017 was also debunked. Left-wing group Refuse Fascism, which subscribes to nonviolent protest, organized demonstrations in only over a dozen locations with the goal of unseating the Trump administration.

The flyer has also been fact checked by PolitiFact, Reuters, and Snopes, among others.

The 2020 version of the claim spread in August, when a screenshot of a Facebook post by a certain Katy Krasnow to “Hickman County Antifa” containing the flyer was also circulated by multiple accounts in various platforms. Krasnow told Snopes that Hickman County Antifa was a satire page, and that she meant to post the meme as a joke.

Fact-checkers, including Rappler, did not find evidence of a connection between the flyer and any Antifa groups.

On election day in the US, the first polls closed on Wednesday, November 4, at 8 am (Philippine time), but due to the number of mail-in ballots for counting, the winner may not be known immediately. (LIVE UPDATES AND RESULTS: Trump vs Biden – US presidential election 2020) – Loreben Tuquero/Rappler.com

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