Not so Innocent anymore: smoothie maker bends the knee, issues apology for following ‘transphobe’ pensioner on Twitter

British smoothie company Innocent Drinks was hauled before the court of social justice and issued a groveling apology for the crime of following one allegedly transphobic pensioner on Twitter.

Innocent Drinks may be guilty of charging an arm and a leg for their smoothies and juices, but the brand was never known for its bigotry. However, one eagle-eyed Twitter user looked through the 31,000 accounts the company follows last month and discovered with horror that 76-year-old Margaret Nelson was among them.

Nelson, the user complained, is a “clear transphobe,” and following her was “too political” for a smoothie company. Innocent saw the complaint, unfollowed Nelson last week, and thanked the tattletale user for the “heads up.”

So, was the problem solved and social justice secured for another day? Evidently not, as the company issued a longer public statement on Tuesday morning. 

“The other day we unfollowed a Twitter account because content on their feed about trans people wasn’t in line with our values of inclusivity and respect,” it read.

“We’ve still got work to do,” the juice peddlers continued, adding “it’s on all of us to make sure everyone can live happy, free lives and we will keep working towards a world where that’s a reality.”

The public statement might help Innocent flog a few more smoothies if the reaction from the trans rights crowd was anything to go by. “Just enjoying my delicious @innocent smoothie and feeling more in support of trans rights than ever,” one LGBT podcaster tweeted, proudly displaying his almost-drained bottle of Innocent’s “Magnificent Mango” concoction.

But what did Margaret Nelson do that could have prompted such a firm reaction? Her Twitter feed is private, but Nelson became publicly known back in 2019 when police in Suffolk investigated her for tweets and blog posts including such inflammatory statements as “Gender is BS. Pass it on,” and “Gender's fashionable nonsense. Sex is real.” 

The police told Nelson that they had received complaints from aggrieved internet users and investigated them as a formality. She was issued an apology and the matter was resolved. 

Innocent deemed one complaint about Nelson worth following up, and her antics worthy of a public announcement. However, Innocent isn’t the only British company to bend the knee to isolated complaints from trans activists. Back in September, supermarket chain Co-op pulled its advertisements from the conservative Spectator magazine after one activist complained about the “transphobic” articles in its pages, prompting a torrent of mocking from Spectator editor Andrew Neil.

This time around, Twitter users led the mocking of Innocent and its “grovelling” statement.

Whether Innocent will trawl the Twitter feeds of the 30,999 or so accounts it still follows in search of past transgressions is unclear at this time.

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