SAMM Newman, 19, was shocked to discover this image that she uploaded to Instagram was deleted. Hours later her account was deactivated.

The student is a US size 24, an Australian size 28, says she grew up being bullied at high school for her weight but that her self esteem improved once she started attending Ohio University and found an online community of people who built up her confidence.

She said Instagram was her “safe place” where she felt comfortable posting body images.

But now she has slammed the social media platform for removing “anyone who doesn’t fit their idea of normal”.

“I didn’t find [the briefs] or the bra at all inappropriate,” Ms Newman told NBC4 News. “They covered me entirely and I’ve seen pictures like that all over Instagram.”

She makes a good point. It can be hard to log on to Instagram without being hit by sexualised images like this.

Or this.

Or even this.

Instagram has been forced to apologise for what it claims was an error and has restored Ms Newman’s account.

“When our team processes reports from other members of the Instagram community, we occasionally make a mistake. In this case, we wrongly removed content and worked to rectify the error as soon as we were notified. We apologise for any inconvenience,” the company said in a statement.

Ms Newman said people have applauded her sticking up for herself and larger people. She had this final word on the matter.

“Fat is not a bad word,” she said. “How confident can you be if you keep censoring yourself because people don’t want to look at you?”