The Charity Commission has offered an explanation behind its reposting of a comment on X that claimed transgender youth support charity Mermaids is “responsible for so much harm”.
The regulator says the repost had been made in error while social media posts mentioning the Commission were being monitored.
A spokesperson for the regulator said: “During routine monitoring of social media a post that mentioned the Commission was accidentally reposted. This was removed quickly as soon as it was identified.”
The explanation has been provided after Mermaids, which no longer uses the X platform, became aware of the regulator’s reposting of the comment.
“In response to an email from us, the Commission confirmed that this appears to have been accidental activity during monitoring. We recognise that accidents do happen, however vigilance is required to ensure that these are addressed as soon as possible,” said the charity.
It added: “As a public body, the Commission must appear to be scrupulously independent and unbiased across its work, including its activity on social media.”
It is understood the regulator is looking to tighten up its social media processes to ensure no similar incidents occur.
“We welcome the reassurance that the Commission is exploring additional safeguards to prevent a recurrence,” said Mermaids.
The charity is also concerned around the timing of the incident, following the release of The Cass Review this week into services for trans children and young people.
“We remain concerned at the potential impact of such mistakes on trans children and young people who, instead of being treated with compassion and respect, are seeing their experiences invalidated and questioned across the media and platforms such as X,” added Mermaids.
The charity quit X last year amid concerns that the social media platform formerly known as Twitter is not a safe environment for its supporters and beneficiaries.
“For some time now, it has been clear that our values as an organisation are at odds with X, as the platform’s guidelines and company ethics do not encourage a safe, healthy or inclusive environment for our community to engage with us in,” said the charity in October last year.
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