Claim:
Disney World is moving to Nashville due to an "ongoing battle" with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Rating:
Labeled Satire ( About this rating? )
Context:
A website describing its content as "satire and parody" started this rumor. Walt Disney World Resort is not moving anywhere.
A rumor that Walt Disney World Resort was moving to Nashville, Tennessee, circulated online in September 2024. According to the claim , the move was directly related to an "ongoing battle" with Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, where the park is located.
Several users posted about the rumor on social media, including one person who asked ( archived ) the Walt Disney World's X account whether it was true. On Sept. 8, a Facebook user also wrote ( archived ): "DISNEY WORLD IS MOVING TO NASHVILLE!!"
Another person asked friends if they'd heard the news, posting ( archived ): "Disney World is moving from Florida to Nashville, Tennessee. Anyone else heard that?"
On X, one person said ( archived ): "In a massive blow to the @GOP, @Disney has announced its plans to move to Nashville, citing the hostilities from @RonDeSantis and the @GOP. It's only getting started, and now @RonDeSantis has screwed over thousands of Floridian voters."
In short, some readers seemed to interpret rumor as a factual recounting of real-life events. However, Disney World was not moving to Nashville or anywhere else.
Rather, the rumor about Disney World moving originated with Mouse Trap News — a website that described its output as "satire and parody."
Its "About" page stated, in part: "Mouse Trap News is the world's best satire and parody site. We write fake stories about Disney Parks stuff. From Disney Park announcements to Disney Hotel and resort news to made-up Disney partnerships, you can be assured that anything you read here is not true, real, or accurate, but it is fun."
The article published by Mouse Trap News on Sept. 5 began:
Breaking news, Disney World is officially moving to Nashville. Starting at the end of September, Disney World will start closing part of their theme parks in order to move them to Nashville, Tennessee.
Disney is doing this because of the ongoing battle with Governor DeSantis. To do this, they will move the entire theme park piece by piece and reconstruct it just outside of downtown Nashville where Disney has been secretly buying thousands of acres of land.
The process will be done in a way where guests can still enjoy their parks, while they move them. For example, they will start by moving rides that are currently closed or closing soon like Test Track and Dinosaur.
The fictional story also spread via a popular video on the Mouse Trap News TikTok account, where it had received more than 300,000 views as of this writing.
There was no evidence Disney World was moving from Florida to Nashville, nor were there any credible news outlets reporting such a story, which would have been eminently newsworthy if true.
In 2023, The New York Times reported that DeSantis' past efforts to limit the autonomy of Disney World "have been widely seen as retaliation for Disney's opposition to legislation" that DeSantis signed in 2022 that "[prohibited] classroom instruction and discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in some elementary school grades."
Snopes has addressed similar satirical claims in the past, such as an item published by the Uncle Walt's Insider website that said Disneyland was moving to Texas .
For background, here is why we alert readers to rumors created by sources that call their output humorous or satirical.
Sources:
Jiménez, Jesus, and Brooks Barnes. "What We Know About the DeSantis-Disney Dispute." The New York Times , 19 May 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/article/disney-florida-desantis.html .
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