Online posts are using flawed logic and false information to malign The Walt Disney Co. as sympathetic to pedophiles or predatory toward young children after the company publicly opposed a Florida bill banning instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.
Posts shared thousands of times on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have attempted to link Disney to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. They've highlighted Disney employee arrests as alleged evidence of a companywide problem. They've pointed to Disney prioritizing diverse content as evidence of the company "grooming" kids.
But these attacks on Disney, which have escalated across social media since the bill passed in late March, are misleading and not supported by facts.
Here's a closer look at the facts.
CLAIM: Disney has close ties to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his ex-girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of luring young girls to be sexually abused by him.
THE FACTS: These claims are not supported by evidence. Social media posts in recent weeks have pointed to three different examples of purported connections between Disney and Epstein, none of which stands up to further investigation.
The first claim involves snorkeling trips that a Disney-affiliated tour provider used to run near Little St. James Island, a small private island in the United States Virgin Islands that Epstein owned.
"REVEALED: Disney Was Sending Kids To Epstein's 'Pedophile...
A front-page article with the byline of veteran New York Times opinion writer Nicholas Kristof is the latest poisonous example of what I call the NGO “halo effect.” Headlined “The Silence That Mee...