Business Insider reported today that Ottawa-based Canadian social media creator Emma Orhun recently faced a barrage of negative comments after promoting the Claude AI assistant.
She said: “I was alone in my apartment when a flood of extremely harsh comments suddenly poured in. I was really scared for the first hour, and there was no one around me. Were they right? Were they wrong? Was I going crazy?”
Emma later discussed the experience on the podcast Dead Internet, which led to another round of criticism. One longtime follower said that AI is harmful to the planet, while others immediately unfollowed her.
Emma said: “When you yell at someone and tell them, ‘I’m right and you’re wrong,’ or even say, ‘You’re a terrible person,’ that approach can never help both sides reach any kind of consensus.”
Clearly, Emma is not the only person to face a fan backlash after promoting AI. At the end of July this year, OpenAI invited dozens of social media creators to upstate New York to discuss how to use AI and attend a beekeeping lecture.
After the bloggers posted photos of honey jars bearing the OpenAI brand, their comment sections were flooded with angry fans. Some described the event as “dystopian,” while others called it “morally bankrupt.”
Emma said on the podcast at the time that women on the internet are often treated as “moral compasses,” and that men do not face the same level of scrutiny when using AI tools.
After being criticized online, Emma withdrew her earlier view. She noted that some male bloggers also receive backlash for promoting AI, so the reaction to this campaign may not be related to gender.
She worries that if this situation continues to escalate, people may come to see AI as something that needs to be hidden in the closet, and eventually no one will be willing to discuss AI openly.