PARENTS of children in Cornish towns are being urged by police to ensure they are using a popular social media app safely and securely.

Launceston Sector police said they have been made aware locally that some children are accepting ‘fans’ because they are ‘famous’ and ‘must be ok’ on ‘Musical.ly’.

Officers said they have concerns that children are posting videos of themselves in their school uniforms, raising the risk of identifying their locality.

A spokesperson for Launceston Sector police said: “As parents we have a duty to play an active role in our children’s online world. Please don’t bury your heads in the sand — get involved!

“This warning comes after concerns have been raised that girls between the ages of eight and 12 are being targeted and groomed by potential paedophiles through the app’s private messaging service.”

Musical.ly is a video social networking app for video creation, messaging, and live broadcasting. The app lets users create short videos by lip-syncing to popular songs.

The police spokesperson added: “These issues were first raised in Merseyside when the Liverpool Cyber Safety team revealed that they had dealt with several cases of grooming through the app and consequently sent emails to local schools warning parents to be vigilant over how their children are using the app.

“It’s believed that males are creating accounts and posing as teens before private messaging victims asking them to send more inappropriate content.

“In the modern day and age it is a lot harder to know if someone is who they claim to be and children are the most vulnerable victims.

“There is no suggestion that the app developers — who have safeguards in place and take swift action to remove inappropriate content — have done anything wrong.”

They have issued five ways to ‘keep your child safe’ while using the app.

1. Secure their account by making it private — this way only users that your children accept are able to view their videos. You can also block a user if needed

2. Tell your child to never include their location when posting videos

3. Tell your children to only accept a follower request if they can be 100% sure that they know the user

4. The app has an age rating of 13+ so if you find that your child created an account without your permission you can email [email protected] and let them know that the account was made by someone underage. They will promptly work to delete the account

5. You can delete all videos, remove their profile picture, change their account name and finally make the account both invisible and unrecognisable before removing it from your child’s device/s.

A spokesperson for Musical.ly told the Post: “We take the safety of our users very seriously and we have zero tolerance for inappropriate behavior on our apps. Our technology lets users report inappropriate activities, and choose who can view their videos and broadcasts and send them messages. It’s easy to flag accounts or report them to [email protected] and we review and terminate accounts that include inappropriate content or otherwise violate our Terms of Service.

“We strongly encourage parents to monitor their teenager’s account, report inappropriate behavior, and have an open dialogue about responsible and safe behaviors for all online activity.”