The photo that fooled people into thinking Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World in Florida had burned down was generated using artificial intelligence by a satirical site called Mouse Trap News, the outlet reported Friday in USA TODAY. .
Cinderella Castle didn’t burn down, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce aren’t renting out Disney World for a day, and park ticket prices won’t triple by 2025. These are all stories made up by Mouse Trap News, which promotes itself as “”.operated by mouse “A Trusted Name in Disney News” and fully proclaims that it publishes “Genuine Disney News that is 100% Fake.”
Its most recent viral post was on Feb. 24, when it claimed that the famous castle was burnt down and that it was “more iconic” like Doofenshmirtz, the spirit Halloween from the Disney Channel cartoon “Phineas and Ferb” He suggested that it would be replaced by something else. Or Elsa’s castle from “Frozen.”
“(Firefighters) did everything in their power to save the castle and prevent as much damage as possible,” the Mousetrap article said. “However, the castle was completely burnt down and there was no way to rebuild it.”
In reality, Cinderella Castle stands unburned in Orlando, Florida.
How did you catch the mouse?
Mouse Trap News told USA TODAY on Friday that the photo of the burning castle was generated by AI. The castle features its old gray and blue color scheme, but it was changed to a peach and blue theme in 2020 to commemorate Cinderella’s 70th anniversary, according to the Disney Parks Blog.
The end of the article on the website says the article is “very real Disney news” that is “completely fabricated.”
The outlet also posted a video of the “fire” on TikTok, which had more than 25 million views by Friday evening. In the comments section, people expressed their opinions on how believable this post is.
One user wrote, “I believed it for a moment until I read the comments, but AI is scary.” Another user commented, “AI-generated footage alone is getting hard to tell, but when you interleave it with real footage, it becomes 10x harder.”
If Disney news seems outrageous, it might be a mousetrap
Nothing coming from Mouse Trap is true, said Mouse Trap’s founder, who called himself by the pseudonym Michael Morrow, after Tom Morrow, Tom Morrow, a personnel mover at Tomorrowland.
The founders said they think one reason people don’t stop and check where the news is coming from is because the headlines are so outlandish.
“They see the hook, they get hooked, and 10 seconds later they share it. And, you know, it spreads like wildfire,” he said.
Despite the company’s website and social media accounts claiming it publishes satirical articles, news outlets and influencers repeatedly present the articles as breaking news.
SNL’s Jimmy Fallon jumped to conclusions
In 2022, Jimmy Fallon reported that Disney had applied for a patent for a roller coaster that would jump off the tracks. Disney didn’t do that, it was just one of the Mouse Trap articles.
“This is an interesting case study in how news spreads,” Mouse Trap’s comment under the TikTok that posted Fallon’s opening monologue reads.
Mouse Trap news people were shocked to see him talking about it.
“It was absolutely insane to look at the picture of Jimmy Fallon that we had created on our website and see him telling this story that we completely made up,” the founder said. told USA TODAY. “It was surreal to see it get that far.”
In the video, a clip of Jimmy Fallon’s opening monologue about roller coasters plays on a television. “This is the only ride that has a sign that says ‘If you’re not this tall, you’ll die,'” Fallon said on the show.
USA TODAY was unable to find any clips of the monologue other than Mouse Trap’s TikTok.
Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update is no stranger to website satire. It was a skit about a new maternity ward that was going to open at Magic Kingdom so guests could give birth in the park, another fake news article started by the Mousetrap article.
The Mousetrap also helped teach us how to spot satire
Mouse Trap News is also used as an example of how to spot misinformation.
The PBS series “Be MediaWise” criticized Mouse Trap’s post about Disney asking the state of Florida to allow it to serve alcohol to people 18 and older, saying, “Identify satire before sharing it as misinformation. This was taken up as an example of a class on “methods”.
“Don’t just take a TikToker’s word for it,” says host Ian Fox. “Follow the links they share and see the evidence for yourself.”
Julia is a trend reporter for USA TODAY. She has covered a variety of topics from local businesses and government to technology and pop culture in her hometown of Miami. you can follow her X, formerly known as TwitterInstagram and TikTok: @juliamariegz.
