Jenna Ortega revealed that she had deactivated her account on X (formerly Twitter) after receiving numerous explicit photos, including at least one photo of her that was generated by artificial intelligence.
“Did I love looking at salacious edited content of myself as a child when I was 14 and made a Twitter account because I had to? No. It’s horrifying. It’s corrupting. It’s wrong,” the “Beetlejuice” actor said during a recent appearance on The New York Times podcast, “The Interview.”
Ortega also said he had seen AI-generated photos of himself as a child, including some that were pornographic, noting that one of the first direct messages he opened on the social media platform had an “unsolicited photo of male genitalia” attached to it.
“And that was just the beginning of what was to come,” she told host Lulu Garcia-Navarro.
Ortega said he had previously been told that having an account on the platform was something he “had to do” to build “his image.”
However, after being allegedly “inundated” with messages following the release of hit Netflix series “Wednesday”, she decided to deactivate her X account.
“I was already in a state of confusion after seeing these ridiculous images and pictures, so I just deleted them,” she said.
While stating that he hates AI, Ortega said the technology could be used for “incredible things”, such as the ability to detect breast cancer four years before it develops.
“It’s beautiful. Let’s leave it like this,” she said.
Ortega added that the experience of receiving the messages was “unpleasant” and left her feeling “nasty” and “uncomfortable.”
“Anyway, that’s why I deleted it, because there was no way I could say anything without seeing that stuff. So I woke up one day and I was like, oh, I don’t need this anymore. So I threw it out,” she said.