A ‘furious’ Illinois father’s social media warning to other parents about the dangers of pedophiles using an otherwise harmless music app to solicit topless photos of children has gone viral.
Brad Summer, of Batavia, Illinois, posted a Facebook message on August 11, describing an incident in which an apparent pedophile tried to use the musical.ly app’s messaging function to ask Summer’s seven-year-old daughter, Madison, to take and send over topless photos of herself.
Summer said he allowed his daughter to use what he thought was a kid-friendly, entertainment social networking app, installed on a family phone, so she could use it to ‘connect with her cousins and make goofy duets of songs together.’
Brad Summer (with his family) took to Facebook to warn other parents about the danger of child predators pretending to be children while using seemingly kid-friendly apps to solicit naked pictures from them
Summer posted this musical.ly messaging exchange between his daughter, Madison, 7, and someone named ‘Jessy,’ claiming to be a nine-year-old girl
The Facebook post quickly went viral. To date, it has been shared 83,000 times and has received 17,000 comments.
Accompanying Summer’s post were four screenshots of the conversation between Madison and a musical.ly user named ‘Jessy,’ who claimed to be a nine-year-old girl, the content of which he said made him ‘furious.’
As soon as ‘Jessy’ finds out that Madison is seven years old, ‘Jessy’ writes, ‘send me your photos.’
When Madison sends over a selfie from the chest up, ‘Jessy’ writes, ‘looking nice’ and ‘send me your pics without t-shirt.’
Madison then sends over another selfie, this time with her face filling the entire frame, cleverly cropping out her t-shirt.
‘Jessy’ is then forced to issue the more direct request that the seven year old ‘make some pics without t-shirt’ and adding ‘I like to see your body without t-shirt.’
When Madison says she can’t, ‘Jessy’ tells her that she can do it and she should take the photos in the bathroom ‘without clothes.’
In the musical.ly chat, ‘Jessy’ repeatedly asks Madison to take topless phoots of herself and send them to ‘her,’ pressuring the child even when she says her mother told her not to do it
After Madison alerts her parents about her conversation, Summer takes over the musical.ly chat and frightens off the suspected child predator by pretending to be a cop
When the child says that her mother told her not to send over topless photos, ‘Jessy’ replies, ‘Don’t tell anyone’ and ‘it’s secret between us only.’
After that exchange, Madison goes radio silent. Over the course of about 20 minutes, ‘Jessy’ urges the child to take topless photos ‘now’ and then tries to get her to respond to the messages.
One hour after ‘Jessy’s’ last message, Summer himself takes control of the phone and sends a message to ‘Jessy’ stating, ‘I am her father and I am a police officer. we have documented your IP address and location. I recommend that you refrain from any other contact.’
After the incident, Summer wrote that he called the police and gave them the cell phone so they could track down the suspected child predator.
According to Summer, authorities have actually managed to find ‘Jessy’s’ IP address and have subpoenaed musical.ly ‘to freeze all records pertaining to this person(s).’
In the Facebook post, Summer said that he is ‘proud’ of how his daughter handled the situation and admitted that he and his wife ‘were naive in thinking that our daughter was safe on what we thought to be a kid friendly app.’
‘We never thought like predators,’ Summer noted and asked that readers ‘not judge us (many still will) but let our experience teach us all.’
He also encouraged other parents to ‘tell your kids to let you know if anyone ever asks something like this, let them know it’s okay to tell you. It has helped us in this situation.’
Summer admitted that he never imagined that a child predator would be lurking in what appeared to be a child-friendly app
Summer said that Madison (center) used the app to connect with her cousins and their friends
Summer apparently received enough criticism from people, likely judging him and his wife for allowing their seven-year-old daughter to use the app in the first place and questioning why she had her own cell phone, promoting him to update his post by clarifying that his daughter was using a family phone that she was only allowed to use under parental supervision.
Summer also noted that the reason why Madison was allowed to connect with ‘Jessy’ and message with her was solely because they had previously connected with extended family members’ friends on the app and the Summer family just assumed that ‘Jessy’ was one of those family friends.
Summer wrote that he is grateful his daughter remembered the personal safety lessons that he taught her and acknowledged the fact that other families whose children have been preyed upon might not have been so fortunate.
‘To those who have went through this as we have or worse, I stand with you! let’s fight these bastards together and give our children their safety back,’ Summer wrote.
Summer posted this message on Facebook, in hopes of warning other parents about the dangers of child predators posing as children on seemingly kid-friendly apps
Summer revealed that police had tracked down the IP address of the suspected child predator
musical.ly describes itself as an entertainment social networking app, meant ‘for creating, sharing, and discovering short videos’ and functioning a platform for users to ‘express themselves through singing, dancing, sports, beauty & style, comedy, and lip-syncing.’
According to the app’s terms of service, people under the age of 13 are prohibited from using musical.ly. Under a special ‘For Parents’ heading of its website, it states, ‘Please do not allow your child under the age of 13 to use our apps.’
The app makers have also included instructions on how to change privacy settings to ensure that only approved users are able to view or send messages.
Speaking with ABC News, Summer — who also goes by the name Brad Frakes — admitted that he had left the app on its default, public settings, because ‘we weren’t aware of any public or private settings that were available to us.’
Detective Michelle Langston of the Batavia Police Department in Batavia, where Summer filed his complaint, told ABC News that a child using the messaging function in an app like musical.ly could be speaking with another child or with an adult pretending to be a child.
Langston warned that in the latter case, the inherent danger is that a child is more likely to reveal personal information to another child.
Ultimately, Summer said, ‘I wasn’t as protective as I should have been, and I take full responsibility for that.
‘I don’t claim to be a perfect parent whatsoever, but I have learned from it, and that is a huge reason why I went public with our post was to let others learn from our mistakes and let them not repeat them.’