VIDEO: Kidfluencers

'Kidfluencers'

20 May 2024

Four Corners

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: It's the age of influencers – and Australian kids are getting on board.

NINA: It just blew up — people just sharing it and I thought wow.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Encouraged by parents, they're filling social media feeds, vying to be the next big thing.

SIMONA STIRLING: They are more authentic, more real.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Selling everything from makeup – to high fashion – they're reaching millions of people.

PIXIE CURTIS:… first we've got the viral TikTok skincare headband.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: The most famous make tens of millions of dollars a year.

ZOE , Ava's mother: She's her own her own brand now I think.

AVA (singing): I want to be famous. I feel like I can keep going and then I would never stop.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: But behind the glitz and glammer, there are growing concerns about who is really benefitting from this new breed of child star.

JULIE INMAM GRANT, eSafety commissioner: We're promoting this imagery and we're glorifying it and we're commodifying it. People are profiting from this.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: And can kids really consent?

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM: Do you ever feel like you were forced to do anything you didn't want to do?

BOBBI: No. I wanted to start the account

KYM : This is her career, how else do you put her out there?

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: No matter how well meaning the parents – they can't always control who is watching.

COMMANDER.HELEN SCHNEIDER: It is clear that offenders will obviously gravitate to victims that are easier to access.

ZOE: The first time I ever received one, I felt sick to my stomach

JULIE INMAN GRANT: We're not going to put our kids in short shorts and mid-drift tops on a dark street corner in King's Cross but we're doing the same in the online world.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM: If you just flick through this you can see.

JULIE INMAN GRANT: Gross. This is a child.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM: Oh wow okay so she's very young.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: In this Four Corners — We delve into the unregulated world of child influencers.

While some parents hope it's setting their kids up for the career of a lifetime we've found they're often exposed to a dark side and the companies that stand to benefit aren't doing enough to keep them safe.

TITLE: KIDFLUENCERS

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Inside a warehouse in South Australia — these cheerleaders are preparing for competition. Ten year old Ava spends at least three hours a night — four days a week here training to be the best. As the flier, the person who gets thrown high in the air, she's loves being centre stage.

ZOE, Ava's Mum: Ava's a big personality in a little person's body. She's very, very active. She just loves to perf loves perform for other people- always just she sees a camera and she's keen, she's ready.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Ava performs for tens of thousands of people around the world through her Instagram channel.

ZOE, Ava's Mum: We were in Covid in lockdown through school. We couldn't go anywhere and started with the beach and taking some shots and some new dresses and it all sort of blew up from there.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Ava has had the account since she was eight– using it to show off her modelling, acrobatic and dance skills.

AVA: I think my first video was science at home. And I got more views and more followers. So it went to 1000 to 2000 in like two nights. So I was pretty happy about that.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Now with more than 14 thousand followers, she's joining the multitudes of children worldwide trying to be 'influencers' — also known as kidfluencers. Child Influencers can make money through collaborations with brands, views on their videos and paid subscriptions to their channels.

CHILD INFLUENER PIXIE: It's the best face wash. You need to use it.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: They use sites like YouTube and TikTok – but the platform of choice for many brands using influencers in Australia is Instagram. Ava's promoted all sorts of products — from fairy floss to online reading tools and stamps…

AVA: So I got the pink one like a normal ponytail. I got the braided ponytail and another braided ponytail.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: And she has quite the collection of free stuff sent to her in exchange for her promotion.

AVA: Then I have my dresses that I also got for free. My favourite one is probably this one

Oh I got this one for free. So I got this (towel) and my hair brush is somewhere.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: How does having 14,000 followers make you feel?

AVA: Feels good because when people see my followers they want to collab with me and I think I hit 13 and then people started sending me more stuff.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Ava and her Mum have even taken to promoting products that they've paid for in the hope it'll be reposted by the company and grow her following. Children under 13 aren't able to have their own Instagram accounts so Ava is only allowed to have this online profile because it's run by Zoe.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: So who does the posting – is it you or Ava?

ZOE: Ava makes her own — she'll do a lot of the ones where she's like dancing. As for like the marketing side of things and that I'll do pretty much all of that.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: One reason Zoe is encouraging Ava's growing stardom is to open up her options for the future.

ZOE: When she was in year one at school she was diagnosed with a severe receptive language disorder and ADHD. So she finds reading and writing quite difficult as well as being dyslexic. I think Instagram has helped with that as well — like it's really helped to boost her confidence a bit.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Some people might have the image of a mom making a kid do something that they don't want to do. Is that what's happening here with Ava?

ZOE: No. You've seen Ava. She's very much got her own personality. Sometimes she tells me how it is. She's her own her own brand now. I think. Its taken her down a whole other avenue I think.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Do you think she does have the ability to consent to all this and to be putting this material online?

ZOE: I don't think any child can consent to a degree. That's what we have parents advocate for them but at the end of the day you know we are looking at the dangers and the risks associated with Ava posting.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Ava is making a big income for a ten-year-old. On top of the free stuff she receives from brands Zoe says she earns up to 500 dollars a month through donations and subscriptions from her followers.

Zoe says Ava gets to keep the money.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Do you know who her subscribers Are?

ZOE Nope. No.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Do you wonder why they're subscribing to see Ava?

ZOE: Yeah, I have wondered that but then why do people subscribe to the other hundreds of thousands of people on Instagram or any other platform?

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Ava's growing following has made her parents take precautions that they don't take with their other children.

ZOE: She's not allowed to catch at all the bus to school on our own. We don't just send her off to shops down the end of the street to go and get milk when we run out. We don't let her go to the park by herself. I think it's just you know a bit more riskier with Ava being on a social platform.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Online Ava has attracted unwanted attention. As well as sexual comments being made on her Instagram page, she's had explicit images sent to her.

ZOE: The first time I ever received one I felt sick to my stomach.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Zoe spends part of each day before Ava gets up filtering messages and blocking users.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM: So do you worry that potentially a paedophile could fixate on her?

ZOE: Absolutely. Yep. We've sat down together as two parents and spoke about the risks and the pros and cons and what there is, what's going on. And had a chat with Ava as well about do you continue. At the end of the day, she loves it. As a parent I think we need to be vigilant and aware at all the times whether your child is on or off social media with paedophiles. But we keep going because social media is what she loves.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Commander Helen Schneider leads the Australian Federal Police unit that investigates online child sexual abuse.

COMMANDER HELEN SCHNEIDER, AFP Centre to Counter Child Exploitation: I think my concerns, whether it's child influences or anyone who is posting that, is you are undoubtedly placing yourself in a greater risk bracket. It is clear that offenders will obviously gravitate to victims that are easier to access. What we're finding in the seizure of devices and large amounts of data is often innocuous pictures of children or non-sexualized images of children that are caught up in these images of child abuse material.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Nina is careful about what she posts of her sons Jerome.

NINA, Jerome's mother: As a mother I believe I'm doing everything possible to protect him and do it all safely. So not posting things where they're topless or just a nappy where images can be doctored and not taking photos of particular streets where you might be taking photos or sharing any form of location.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: A successful kidfluencer Jerome has flown from his home in Queensland to Sydney to be the face of a new clothing line.

NINA, Jerome's mother: So Jerome has about 100,000 followers and look at him like it's his face speaks for itself. There's not much I need to say. He's a beautiful boy and people can see that.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Thousands of people were watching Jerome even before he was born. His mother, Nina, is a model and already had her own following on Instagram when she became pregnant. Nina started his account when he was still in the womb.

NINA, Jerome's mother: As soon as he was born I just looked at his face, I'm like, oh here we go. You are my son. You're just going to be a little mini copy of me. Even before he was born people were going to be like he's going to be a little model. I kind of think that just kind of manifested into where he is today and he absolutely loves it now.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Brand deals rolled in – with Jerome now making about 20 thousand dollars a year – 90% of which his parents say they put aside for him. At first it went well but then Nina encountered the darker side of kidfluencing. She says different Instagram accounts started appearing featuring Jerome's photos with some of the account holders making shocking claims – like they were in fact Jerome's mother. When Nina contacted them – they only doubled down.

NINA, Jerome's mother: Oh horrible and especially when they kind of taunting me and saying that, no he's my child, and you know, Jerome sitting right next to me and it's just like what did they get out of it? You know it's frustrating but there's really not much I can do.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Worse was when her followers alerted her to what looked like a US adoption website. People were being told that for a price they could adopt a child. One of them was Jerome.

NINA, Jerome's mother: They portrayed themselves to be legitimate. They had an address of an adoption agency in America and were posting my son among with many other children. I felt my heart sink. I pretty much started crying if I'm honest. And I just got goosebumps all over my body like how has it gotten this far? So yeah, I felt horrible as a mother you want to protect your child and I felt that that was out of my control now.

JULIE INMAN GRANT, eSafety commissioner: We have to remember that social media is like the public square. Sadly, it's become a bit of a cesspool. Social media in general that attracts people who have ill intent or bad intent towards children.

NINA, Jerome's mother (TikTok): As you can see this is my son on their website, this says 'adopt now'. Another photo of my son.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Nina posted about the website on her own page and the scam was ultimately taken offline. I think a lot of people might think why did you keep putting Jerome out there after something like this happened. Why do you keep doing it?

NINA, Jerome's mother: It's a big learning curve. I love it. He loves it so far. I mean I suppose it's up to him if he wants to continue it. I'm being extremely careful and protective of him right now. I love what I do. I absolutely love it and he's a beautiful boy and I'm very proud of him and which is why I'm continuing to do it.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: And listening to your talk it sounds like this is a lot of what you want there's probably people thinking, well, is this what Jerome wants?

NINA, Jerome's mother: Well, I never force him into anything and for him a photo shoot is really him going to play and we just capture what we can.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: And have you thought about I guess issues of consent? I mean a lot of people would say, look, he's four, he doesn't know what he's doing. Can he consent to this and how do you think he will feel when he's older?

NINA, Jerome's mother: I think I'm doing the best I can to explain in detail what we are doing So he's comfortable with it and you know, I'm his mum, I know best, And at the end of the day it's up to me and if I believe I'm protecting him while doing it that's the best I can do.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Simona Stirling has worked in marketing for nine years and is now launching a new children's fashion label.

SIMONA STIRLING: I think people want to sort of see kidfluencers, you know, because I think they are more authentic, more real — that then translates to sales definitely. I've worked with brands where they've basically had their top performing ads of all time be of an influencer and that way outperformed any even campaign shoots that they did that they might have spent $30,000/$40,000 on and then they've spent maybe $1000 or gifted free product and that's been their top performer.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: While Nina only works with companies she believes are doing the right thing there are plenty who aren't.

LYN SWANSON KENNEDY: They are willing to prioritise profit over children's safety and wellbeing. We want to see corporations putting safety measures in place and not utilising children to essentially be billboards for their brands.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Lyn Swanson Kennedy works with Collective Shout – an Australian organisation concerned about the growing objectification of women and children. She believes no child should be an Influencer. And one of the companies in her sights is fashion giant Shein.

LYN SWANSON KENNEDY: Often the girls are dressed in sexualized clothing. They are posed very adult-like they are pouting.

JULIE INMAN GRANT, eSafety commissioner: The challenge with sexualizing young people as part of influencing is it's subtle. There may not be that solid line but clearly the more suggestive or sexualized the child is, depending on their audience, the more comments, the more likes, the more hits they're getting, obviously the more attention.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Shein's already been reprimanded for its use of kidfluencers. An Australian girl posted a video from her account showing her wearing a cut out Shein dress. The post included a discount code – which meant it's likely the girl would be paid commission by Shein if people bought the item. The regulator, the Ad Standards Community Panel, noted the girl was 14. It considered Shein did have a reasonable degree of control over the advertisement and depicted the girl in a manner which treats her as an object of sexual appeal. In response to our queries, Shein issued a brief statement – saying it stands for the safety and wellbeing of children and does not condone actions that could endanger them. Shein is one of many brands that have been criticised for sexualising children on social media. E Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant is Australia's independent regulator for online safety. Before taking up the role she spent 20 years working for big tech. She says social media platforms, as well as brands, are profiting from sexualisation.

JULIE INMAN GRANT, eSafety commissioner: There's always been peer pressure but the kind of peer pressure created by social media, this rockstar confected version of self can be so harmful and damaging. And we don't want to sexualize an entire generation of tweens and younger but that's what we're seeing when we're promoting this imagery and we're glorifying it and we're commodifying it. People are profiting from this. So we need to take, I think, a closer look at ourselves as a society.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: For Bobbi being a kidfluencer was about highlighting her dance talents and getting brand deals. In the darker places on the internet – it became about became something else. Now 15 — she's been dancing since she was a little girl.

BOBBI: It's literally my whole life because all I do is dance all day every day and it's just something that I am so passionate about.

KYM, Bobbi's mother: I remember one day she said to me that if I didn't have dance it would be not breathing. I appreciate that because she absolutely loves it.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: When Bobbi was seven her mother started her Instagram account.

KYM: We've would go and spend half a day and we would have a lot of fun. It was just her and I in the moment taking shots and that was her being creative and expressive.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Kym said she did it to promote Bobbi's dance career.

KYM: We always were very mindful of the content that we posted, the angles that we used. I tried my hardest to portray her as the child she was at the age she was but a lot of the time it's a dance world and the costumes are small and she's got a full face of make-up on.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: After a couple of years it went big with multiple brand deals and Bobbi reaching 250 thousand followers. At her peak- up to two thousand new followers were joining each day.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM: There's this one.

BOBBI: Oh my Gosh. Wow. That's a long time ago.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Seven years after she started – Bobbi can now reflect on what it was like being a kidfluencer at such a young age.

BOBBI: I didn't think I was an influencer like at that age I wasn't caring about the followers or the likes. I think I was just a little kid just showing off what they do. Yeah. Sometimes when we do these things I'd always get frustrated and I was just like sometimes, yeah, I didn't want to do it. But yeah I am glad that I like did it because obviously it got me like in a good place with all like the like, I've got lots of deals and like brand like brand deals and sponsorships.

At its height Kym was spending many hours a day managing Bobbi's Instagram but says it became impossible to monitor who was following her.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Instagram allows account owners to block users but Kym says the clunky process meant she couldn't block all of them. Who were her followers?

KYM: There was a lot of dancers and at one point I think there was a lot of men and there was varying ages and from lots of different countries.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: What kind of things were you Blocking?

KYM: That'd be inappropriate comments, comments which had more of a sexual connotation to them which really upset me the first time I became aware of it like inappropriate emojis. And I don't think if a child saw them they would know what they mean but you would like a squirting water emoji or a peach emoji. I remember someone sending a message and asking to send different photos, different dance stretches and then they started asking very peculiar, the very specific poses and I thought no and that really, I was really shocked.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Soon multiple fan accounts of Bobbi sprung up, some masquerading as her real Instagram profile. There were sexual comments all over the pages. Bobbi's image was being used on other websites too with her face used to make sexualised images. All the original photos had been taken from Bobbi's Instagram account which Kym had created.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Do you think potentially you played a part in sexualizing Bobby?

KYM: No. Do you watch the Olympics? They do gymnastics, they do swimming. Bobby a lot of the time is more covered than that. Do you go to a local beach where any person who walks past has access to it, where anyone can be sitting there taking photos, where anyone can be sitting there having inappropriate thoughts. So where do you draw the line? It's like telling a woman you shouldn't go out in public dressed like that because you could get raped. Why? That's teaching my daughter to feel ashamed and don't go out in public and don't show my talent. I'm not responsible for other people having a judgement or opinion, that's their own business. I know what we're doing. Bobby knows what we're doing. You know she's safe in my eyes.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Kym complained about the copycat accounts to Instagram asking for them to be taken down. Instagram has the right to delete accounts when it finds they're not abiding by the terms of use. But soon after Bobbi's actual account with hundreds and hundreds of posts was deleted by Instagram.

BOBBI: I was upset. It actually made me really upset, I think. Yeah, I was crying because we put so much work and time into it and I know that I just loved, I just loved posting everything. I just was really confused too.

KYM: That was like the nail in the coffin, like, are you kidding me? I just thought here's a page that is absolutely not, it's totally fake. It's not monitored- that is allowed to stay open. Yet this page that was making her, she had income, she had responsibility, we lost all of them. And that's her whole career and they just wiped it.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Instagram owner Meta wouldn't respond to questions about why it deleted Bobbi's account but after Four Corners asked the company about the copycat accounts it deleted some of them. Bobbi started her account again and now has about half the number of followers. Meta said it had developed a range of features that help people protect themselves from unwanted contact including tools that allow blocking and reporting. But most families we've spoken to say often when they've reported sexual content to Instagram no action is taken. Not all kidfluencers are sexualised by users on Instagram but our research has found there's a group of girls that are often targeted.

LYN SWANSON KENNEDY, Collective Shout: There does seem to be a particular draw by these men to content featuring underage girls in particular types of clothing. So swimwear, leotards, cheer wear.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: In fact a look at Lyn Swanson Kennedy's account shows how Instagram is serving up these children to predators.

LYN SWANSON KENNEDY: I never have to look for these girls. I don't have to seek this content out.

Essentially, I have a research account which I use and I use it the way that a predator likely uses it. And I follow around 1600 underage girls. They are fed to me in an algorithm driven gallery of more and more young girls, kid influencers, mini models.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: When Four Corners began researching this program after following just half a dozen girls the same thing happened to our search feed. Four Corners journalist Carla Hildebrandt has been investigating the Instagram accounts of kidfluencers for more than year.

CARLA HILDEBRANDT: So you can see here are some of the comments from accounts that seem to be from men. The seductress. And your best stuff was always slow and sensual…

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: And there are many more disturbing comments. As well as public comments, some kidfluencers are bombarded with private messages.

CARLA HILDEBRANDT, Reporter: So one parent of a nine year old child influencer on Instagram has given us some of the messages her daughter's received. Here's a user saying they want to do a tribute. So that means ejaculating on a photo of the girl. And there's more.

GRAPHIC WORDS: You're very, very beautiful.

When you're older you'll be sexy.

I'm looking for a sugar baby to spoil with $5000 weekly.

JESS LONGBOTTOM: So how does this mother deal with this?

CARLA HILDEBRANDT, Reporter: Well she said she'd report it to Instagram but there were times Instagram wouldn't investigate.

Instagram: Because of the high volume of reports we received, we couldn't review this chat. We understand this may be frustrating and we're working on improving our review process.

CARLA HILDEBRANDT, Reporter: It gets much worse. So I've found fake porn using the kids faces and yeah the intense obsession they have with these girls is frightening.

Carla's discovered encrypted chat channels where groups of men lust over their favourite child influencers after scraping the photos off Instagram and other social media sites.

GRAPHIC: I need to see her in person, the live near me. I just saw the mom post the park near my house (love heart)"

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: There are also photos of them masturbating to images of the girls.

CARLA HILDENBRANDT, Reporter: This is one conversation which has over 150 members dedicated to a 15 year old US influencer.

GRAPHIC: Need more deep fakes."

"Just imagine ….on her."

"I wouldn't pull out."

"I bet she is super flexible"

CARLA HILDENBRANDT, Reporter: In this other chat, they share violent fantasies about stalking a girl home from school, abducting and raping her. And this is a kid fluencer. Yeah. And I found similar content about Australian child influencers.

JULIE INMAN GRANT, eSafety commissioner: We're not going to put our kids in short shorts and mid drift tops on a dark street corner in King's Cross in the middle of the night to see what kind of response they get from young men. But we're doing the same in the online world where there are literally millions of people. But we seem to think that there's a degree of safety because there're online, but there's just a different kind of harm.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: The harm isn't just limited to the online world. In the US Ava Majury had garnered a following of one million people – when one of her fans began stalking her.

LYN SWANSON KENNEDY: Her stalker, was an 18-year-old young man. He followed her on social media and became obsessed with her.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: When he tried to break into the families home Ava's father shot him dead.

AVA MAJURY'S FATHER: I reacted and I reacted

AVA MAJURY'S MOTHER: Perfectly

AVA MAJURY'S FATHER: as best I could.

LYN SWANSON KENNEDY: This would be the pinnacle of fears coming to reality.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Some companies appear to be benefitting from the predatory behaviour. Several platforms, including Instagram, are allowing parents to sell exclusive videos and photos of their children. Brand Army is ONE. Similar to Only Fans it's a subscriber-based site that allows people to pay creators in exchange for accessing their content but there's no nudity or sex.

At this pre-launch party in LA Brand Army was promoting both its adult and child creators.

LYN KENNEDY SWANSON: Think about it. Who on earth wants to pay for content featuring children?

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Four Corners has found dozens of teenagers with accounts on Brand Army with some charging 100 dollars a month to subscribe.

CARLA HILDENBRANDT: So here is this influencer from the US. She's a teenager and there's a number of photos of her in a string bikini.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Oh wow okay she's really very young and that bikini as you say it's string bikini and she's pouting at the camera. The photo the way it's set up it's more like how you imagine an adult model with would pose. It's not how you would think that a young girl would pose. And so you can see here the person running her account has commented.

GRAPHIC: hope you like this kini as much as I do because here's more pics… maybe even a part 3 coming soon (wink emoji).

CARLA HILDENBRANDT: People are paying up to $100 to access her account – and there's the option to pay more for extra photos. So here you can pay $40 for more bikini shots.

LYN SWANSON KENNEDY : I know for a fact that there are many parents who know exactly what's going on and they willfully turn a blind eye justifying the means by the ends whether it's fame or profit.

CARLA HILDEBRANDT: And I've found Australian girls who have parent run accounts on Brand Army.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM: So this is Australian kids getting payment for content they are putting on this site? And what kind of content are they getting money for?

CARLA HILDENBRANDT: This girl for $30 a month, subscribers get exclusive pictures and videos and behind the scenes content. And they can also talk to her privately for a fee per message.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Many of the photos of the young teenager are in tight clothes or midriff tops. Hundreds of photos are available from her parent-run account. In a bizarre list of terms and conditions for junior creators – Brand Army has said there can't be more than 50 percent bikini content on kids channels. You also must be over 18 to look at it.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: I wouldn't mind showing you one of these accounts. — it's of an Australian girl . If you just flick through there you can see.

JULIE INMAN GRANT, eSafety commissioner: Gross. This is a child. This is selling and commodifying your child's innocence and we're never going to be able to sterilise the internet. These images will follow this young woman throughout her life.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: We've found at least 10 accounts that have similar content on Brand Army. When Four Corners alerted the company it removed some of the material. Brand Army has stopped signing up new kids but the existing accounts are still active. Instagram also says it's stopping paid content of children, but Four Corners is aware of some child influencer accounts that are still charging for photos and videos.

JULIE INMAN GRANT: We need the platforms to be taking more responsibility. They're creating the hunting grounds on which these paedophiles are seeking out and sexualizing our children and worse grooming and exploiting them.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: According to US court documents… Meta estimates that about one hundred thousand children using Facebook and Instagram receive online sexual harassment every day.

JULIE INMAN GRANT: They're all driven by profit motive, and sex has always sold. They have the ability to detect sexualized comments but the more explicit the imagery of the young people, the more attention they get, the more likes they get, the more dollars they get. So there is a real perverse incentive even in the way social media companies are structured and the way that influencers or the parents who are influencing their children are incentivized and monetized that engagement online.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Meta said in the last three months of last year it took action on over 18 million pieces of child sexual exploitation content on Facebook and Instagram. It says it takes strong action whenever it becomes aware of this material. Making sexual comments online and generating sexual images of children can be a criminal offence in Australia.

COMMANDER HELEN SCHNEIDER, AFP Centre for Child Exploitation: It could include an AI generated image or a real photo. It also includes text stories and what I mean by that if people are having sexualized conversations you know about an image, then of course there is a risk that could hit a legal threshold of what is child abuse material. We all need to look at those on a case by case basis.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Kym and Zoe say despite complaining to state police about their daughter's being targeted — they were told nothing could be done. At the moment, the E-Safety Commissioner can only issue take down notices to online companies about clear cases of child sex abuse.

JULIE INMAN GRANT: We don't have the powers we need to tackle the harms that are happening right now.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: So specifically around the sexualization of children online and I guess this grey area, would you like to see the act expanded?

JULIE INMAN GRANT: I think it's something that we should look at. It needs to be something that's effective, implementable and achievable. I mean, there may even be criminal elements to this. If a parent or an adult is exploiting a child to the extent that it's putting them in harm's way is just a banning of that adult enough or is there a dereliction of parental duty? I think these are all things we need to talk about and we do need to draw a line somewhere.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Kym says she did everything she could to protect Bobbi.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM: Do you feel like your mum kept you safe online?

BOBBI: Oh like a hundred percent. She'd be blocking people. She would delete the comments and she never made a big thing out of it. I never would even know about this stuff. My mum puts so much time and effort in so I think I'm really grateful that she got it to the point that it was.

JESS LONGBOTTOM: Do you feel like this account, being a kidfluencer, has that set you up for your future?

BOBBI: Yeah I know that it has actually really has helped almost because I do have a larger following and in the dance industry it is, I think even in most industries, social media is a really important part of it. I think it has actually really helped me get out there and be noticed.

AVA: Hi guys, it's Ava. Welcome back to the live that I'm going to do.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: Zoe says she too has been doing everything she can to keep her daughter safe. At the end of the day — she's decided the positives Ava gets out of social media outweigh the risks.

JESS LONGBOTTOM: Do you think there's a chance Ava could look back on this one day and regret it?

ZOE: She may, she may not. I don't think she regret it. She may come to a point in her time where she says mum I've had enough, I don't want to do it, let's not do it anymore and that's completely fine, that's her choice.

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM, Reporter: These kids are going where no generation has gone before.

The repercussions of having such a big social media profile are yet to be fully known. But for others it's clear – it's already come at a cost.

LYN SWANSON KENNEDY: I am horrified that as a society, as a community, we have failed these girls and I suspect they will in many cases be wondering where are the adults? Where were the adults that were supposed to protect me and why didn't they?

JULIE INMAN GRANT: We are creating imagery that will pervade and follow them forever. Many of these children may not have agency. They may not have consent. They certainly don't have the cognitive development to know what this means, what they're doing today, what this might mean for them tomorrow.