Speaking to The Telegraph, a former Tumblr blogger, who asked for anonymity, said she had to stop her own depression and anxiety help blog after she found herself “falling down the rabbit hole of content that triggered negative emotions”.
“I found it really easy to continuously fall back into bad habits and bad coping skills that only worsened my mental health,” she said.
“A few of my friends… were really frequent viewers of YouTube videos of people’s stories with eating disorders, depression and anxiety.
“I think it is really difficult to find that line between what is helpful and inspirational and what is triggering content.”
Writing in The Daily Telegraph last week, Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright said: “Social media companies clearly need to do more to ensure they are not promoting harmful content to vulnerable people.”
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock has written to executives at Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, Google and Apple ordering them to “step up and purge this content once and for all”.
A YouTube spokesman said: “We know many people use YouTube to find information, advice or support sometimes in the hardest of circumstances. We work hard to ensure our platforms are not used to encourage dangerous behaviour.