The globally popular app TikTok is worrying experts who say it is becoming a breeding ground for the sexual exploitation of young girls. Particularly worrisome to legal, law enforcement, and children’s safety experts is the TikTok “live” feature.

Forbes reports that many children at alarming rates are engaging in transactions with adults that include sexual favors. In theory the app has security measures in place such as a minimum age requirement of 18 in order to be able to exchange money. No one under age 16 is allowed to go live. They are a poor deterrent to predators.

Austin Berrier, a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations who specializes in live-streamed cyber crimes and child sexual abuse, said often alarms are not raised among parents or authorities because monetization is “through tokens or flowers or stupid little emojis.”

John Shehan, a vice president at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, told Forbes the predators form relationships and trust with the children. “That’s how it starts,”  he said.

But, the interactions “quickly go from images of the feet, whether there’s monetary compensation or just the fact that they’re willing to take those images, that move off-platform into other platforms or other environments where they continue to ask for additional photographs, more sexually suggestive, that then very quickly turn into pornographic images,” he said. “And then before you know it, it’s a sextortion case.”