AN 'Instagrammer' had her account disabled after she reported images promoting self-harm to bosses.

Lauren Durrant, from Colchester, is urging creators of the image-posting app Instagram to reconsider their procedure for censoring self-harm posts.

It comes after she reported a number of worrying images, but received a backlash from fellow Instagrammers.

Instagram has hit national news headlines recently for "normalising self-harm".

Lauren said: "I have my own personal account that I use every day but people were reporting me because I was reporting their self-harming pictures. "Now my account has been disabled and their accounts have still been left for everyone to see, including children."

She added: "I found images of self-harm and how people wanted to die, this was found on a public profile so anybody could have seen it.

"In recent news there has been reports about a girl killing herself due to some of the pictures found on people's profiles.

"When you report these kinds of photos the website says it doesn't breach guidelines and they don't take the photos down."

She reached out to Instagram asking for support but received nothing back.

She said: "I think these websites need to be looked at and the policies and procedures need to be changed.

"It's almost like they are happy to promote this kind of thing, and it isn't fair on anybody."

Health Secretary Matt Hancock is due to meet with the boss of Instagram on Thursday.

It comes as a government mental health adviser says sites like Instagram are “normalising” self-harm and risking the creation of a “suicide generation”.

Mr Hancock will meet Adam Mosseri, the worldwide Head of Instagram, to demand change.

Instagram has since said it will hide images that show self-harm behind "sensitivity screens".

The new feature will blur the offensive material until a user actively chooses to view it.