Fact check: Post claiming Disney lost $2.4 billion is stolen satire

Valerie Pavilonis, USA TODAY
·5 min read
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The claim: Disney lost $2.4 billion in a day amid 'Don't Say Gay' controversy

Over the past month, protests have erupted over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' signing of the Parental Rights in Education bill, known to critics as the "Don't Say Gay" bill. Online, some are spreading misinformation.

While initially criticized for what some employees called a lukewarm response to the bill, Disney – which is Florida's largest private employer – has since taken a stronger stance and called for the bill's repeal.

A Facebook post from April 9 connects that action to Disney's stock price, claiming Disney's value fell by $2.4 billion in one day. The post garnered over 150 shares and 1,000 interactions within two weeks.

"This shows that there is a silent majority now standing up against to (sic) these mental cases and sodomites for the sake of their children and grandchildren," reads the caption of the April 9 post, published by the Facebook group Grow Food, Not Lawns. "Thanks be to God for DeSantis."

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The caption is accompanied by a screenshot of a news headline reporting the $2.4 billion figure. But the headline isn't actually from a news site.

Instead, the claim comes from a website that describes itself as satire. And while Disney's stock price has indeed fallen since the company came out against Florida's bill, long-term data shows the drop is in line with recent stock price fluctuations – not a sudden, unprecedented drop

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the claim for comment.

Headline from satirical website

The headline in the post reads, "Disney Shareholders In a Panic After $2.4 Billion in Losses in One Day." It comes from the Patriot Party Press, a self-described satirical news site.

"Everything on this website is fiction," the site's about page reads. "It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real."

The headline in the post is an example of what could be called "stolen satire," where stories written as satire and presented that way originally are captured via screenshot and reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here.

Disney's value has been falling

Despite the fact that the post stems from a satirical website, there is truth to the claim that Disney has recently suffered losses. Bigger losses than the post cited, even, in the preceding weeks.

On March 28, the day Disney announced its opposition to Florida's new law, Disney stock opened at $138.88 per share and closed at $138.72. Given its 1.82 billion outstanding shares, that means Disney's value dropped about $291 million.

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Over the next few days, the stock price briefly went over $140 and then fell a few dollars over the next week. The biggest day-to-day drop occurred between closes April 5, when Disney closed at $135.62 per share, and April 6, when Disney closed at $132.57. Given 1.82 billion shares outstanding, that represents a day-to-day loss of about $5.6 billion – more than double the $2.4 billion claimed in the post.

By April 9, the date of the viral post, Disney had an estimated value of $240 billion, indicating a loss of more than $10 billion since March 28.

Still, such drops aren't unheard of in recent Disney history.

While share prices have dropped lately, even lower prices were recorded a month earlier, with a closing price of $129.03 on March 14. While the pandemic has caused various fluctuations in Disney's value, six-month and year-long graphs show that Disney stock has been trending slightly downward for some time.

More: With punishment ready, Florida GOP lawmakers tell Disney to rethink 'Don't Say Gay' criticism

For a company as large as Disney, the recent changes are normal, according to James Angel, a professor of finance at Georgetown University.

“This is within the normal fluctuations that you see on a daily basis,” Angel told the Associated Press on April 11. “This is what we typically see for stocks. They bounce around a little bit and as far as the patterns go, there’s nothing here that jumps out where I go, ‘Oh, what happened?’”

Our rating: Missing Context

Based on our research, we rate MISSING CONTEXT the claim that Disney lost $2.4 billion in a day due to the controversy over the "Don't Say Gay" bill. The $2.4 billion figure originated in an article from a satire website. Disney's value did fall by even more than that amount in a day after the company's announcement opposing the bill, but that fluctuation was in line with a long-term downward trend and expected variation, an expert said.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Satirical article claims that Disney's value has dropped