Did Michael Jordan reject a $400 million offer from Disney, saying he does not "collaborate with companies aligned with woke ideologies"? No, that's not true: An AI detector found that the article that said so was 99.9 percent likely to be AI-generated. The media didn't report that Jordan or his representatives rejected an offer from Disney.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on August 6, 2024. Above a split image of the Disney logo and a picture of Michael Jordan, the post's caption said:
Michᴀel Jordan Rejects $400 Millɪoɴ Disney Offer, Stating "I Do Not Collaborate With Companies Aligned With Woke Ideologies" In Bold Μove.
The words "Michael" and "Million" contain different fonts or language substitution-- techniques often used to foil plagiarism detectors, according to experts.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Aug 15 17:10:29 2024 UTC)
A comment on this post linked to an article (archived here) titled, "Brᴇakiɴg: Mɪchaᴇl Jordan's Bold Stance Against Disney's 'Woke' Culture Sparkꜱ Deʙate." The title again used an inconsistent typeface. The article, published on August 6, 2024, appeared on a website created on a WordPress platform -- not standard practice for a credible news outlet.
This article also did not cite any sources or provide any evidence to confirm its claim about Jordan speaking out against what it termed Disney's "'woke' culture."
Lead Stories ran the text of the article through the Hive Moderation AI-detection tool, which determined that the post was 99.9 percent likely to have been generated using artificial intelligence:
(Source: Hive Moderation screenshot taken Thu Aug 15 18:25:47 UTC 2024)
Using keywords, Lead Stories also searched for the article's claim on Google News. Search results, visible here, showed no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the claim.
Lead Stories contacted PR representatives of Michael Jordan and The Walt Disney Company about the claim. This fact check will be updated as appropriate if responses are received.
In an April 18, 2023, fact check, Lead Stories also reported that a claim that Michael Jordan had turned down a $120 million deal from Disney was fictional. Other fact checks of claims related to Walt Disney can be found here.
