North Wales Police boss warns that kids are being ‘bombarded’ with explicit messages on popular app

Children are being groomed and bombarded with sexually explicit messages on popular social media app Musical.ly.

North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones is warning parents their children could be at risk of being groomed by paedophiles on the app.

The hugely popular free to use app now boasts more than 150 million global so-called “musers” – 2.5 million of them in the UK and has been described as being like Instagram, YouTube and karaoke all rolled into one.

Musical.ly lets you make and share music videos, pick your song from within the app and dance or sing along for up to 15 seconds, choose from a variety of editing effects and share your video or save it privately.

Viewers can post real-time comments and can even be “guested” into live chats.

The app also has a live streaming feature called Live.ly and a direct messaging service called Directl.ly.

Channel 4 News viewed 45 hours of live streams from the app as part of an investigation, it revealed nearly half of the streams viewed contained inappropriate content, directed to girls as young as nine.

On 50 occasions, children were asked to show or remove their clothing, or change into sexy outfits.

There were more than 25 sexual references to body parts and almost 30 occasions where children received sexual questions or requests, some of which were extremely explicit.

No live moderation took place and none of the explicit exchanges – some lasting over an hour – were closed down.

DangerPoint.

Arfon Jones spoke out after being briefed about the problem during a visit to the DangerPoint children’s safety centre for which he has provided funding.

Safety experts at the centre in Talacre are worried it’s easy for under-age children to use the apps by saying they are 13 years old or over.

DangerPoint manager Julie Evans said:”

“Musical.ly is an app that a lot of the children are using where they’re uploading photos of themselves singing and dancing.

They like sharing them between their friends, but also people that they don’t know can talk to them via the app so they could potentially be groomed online.

It’s a real concern for us because a lot of the children say that they are using the app when they’re not even old enough to use it. You should be 13 so they’re obviously telling fibs about their age to get on there.”

Mr Jones said there is an important message here, not just for children, but for parents and grandparents as well.

“If it saves only a few children from being harmed in whatever way then I think it has been efficient and effective way of getting the message across.

There is nothing more important than keeping children safe and I’m happy to be able to fund schools to come here.

We’re seeing that children at a very young age do use social media and that is a worry and I think we need to do what we can to get the message through to parents and grandparents that they need to be aware of what their children of whatever age are doing online.

I think the lesson is, when you buy a tablet or a smartphone for your child, not only do you need to put the security settings on the phone itself, but you also need to put them on all of the apps that they use as well, and to make sure that they don’t join social media until they are 13 years of age.”

CEOP the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command say it has seen an increase in the popularity of Musical.ly amongst young people.

As a result, they have created this guide for parents and carers to help them understand more about the Musical.ly and it’s features.

Download it here:  Musical ly Parent Guide.pdf