Brisbane Sprouter trend continues after Instagram account shut down

A SOCIAL media movement sexually exploiting Brisbane girls as young as 13 refuses to die, a week after its main account was shut down.

THE disturbing “Brisbane Sprouter” trend is continuing with several subsidiary accounts still operating online.

While the most popular local Instagram account, with nearly 500 followers, was disabled earlier this week, numerous other accounts are still attracting followers daily.

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Girls as young as 13 are being tagged with captions that refer to their sex appeal, breasts and even show them placed next to their runway model “future lookalike”.

Bravehearts criminologist Carol Ronken described the ongoing trend as “disgusting” and said all associated accounts should be disabled immediately to protect Brisbane kids from online predators.

“When sites like Brisbane Sprouters are clearly exploiting young people, they certainly need to be taken down,” Ms Ronken said.

She said posting images on sprouter accounts made it easy for child-sex offenders to “become obsessed with those children” and attempt to track them down.

“There are many child sex offenders who use those types of photos for their own sexual pleasure as well as trying to track those children down,” Ms Ronken said.

“Young people are posting images of themselves that can be seen as sexual because they’re trying to get that self-worth from the people they’re connecting with on the internet. I think young people know that it’s a risk but they don’t see it as a risk to themselves.”

Originally published as Brisbane Sprouter trend continues after Instagram account shut down