His young daughter loved a music app. He didn't know strangers could message her on it

It sounds innocent enough: A mobile app that lets you create short music videos with your cellphone and share them on your profile.

That’s what Brad Summer, a dad from Illinois, thought when he let his 7-year-old daughter use the app Musical.ly on his cellphone.

But then she started getting inappropriate messages from a stranger — and now Summer has a warning for other parents about the little-known messaging feature on the app.

“She used this app to connect with her cousins and make goofy duets of songs together,” Summer wrote in a Facebook post. “We have accepted friends of theirs and our daughter believed this was another one. I never thought of someone pretending to be 9 to gain access to my child.”

Summer posted screenshots of a conversation between his daughter Madison and a user claiming to be a 9-year-old girl named Jessy.

At first, Jessy asked Madison how old she was, then asking her to send over a picture of herself.

When Madison sent over an innocent selfie, the user named Jessy told Madison to go into the bathroom and send another photograph of herself “without t-shirt.”

“My mom said I can’t,” Madison messaged.

“Don’t tell to anyone,” Jessy replied in a series of messages. “... its (sic) a secret between us only. Lol. make (sic) some pics (sic) without t-shirt now.”

That’s when Madison let her father know what was happening. He quickly messaged “Jessy” and told the user that “we have documented your IP address and location,” according to US Weekly.

Summer said he wasn’t aware of the messaging feature in Musical.ly. After all, he thought his daughter was safe — she is closely monitored and the app isn’t even a social networking site, he said.

Now, he just wants his family’s experiences to serve as a lesson for others out there.

“I know many will blame us parents for this happening,” he wrote on Facebook. “But we never thought like predators and I guess we were naive in thinking that our daughter was safe on what we thought to be a kid-friendly app. We have learned the hard way. I ask that you not judge us (many still will) but let our experience teach us all.”

This story was originally published August 23, 2017 at 9:00 AM with the headline "His young daughter loved a music app. He didn't know strangers could message her on it."