Please, Please read this article. (This could save you a lot of Embarrassment in the Future)
“Why I Hate Socialcam, Even If It Might Be the Next Instagram”
It is a must read and Mr. Robert Hof offers a huge bit of warning for all of you.
Viddy and Socialcam are bully applications.
This spring you may have seen a number of people who post funny, stupid videos using this application. First off, the only way to view the videos is to give these applications complete access to your personal profile. Then, after viewing the stupid video or somewhat inappropriate video, the application lets all of your friends and followers know that you viewed it. Not good!!!!
Some of my friends who are owners and CEOs of companies have showed up on my Facebook Wall as watching some really horrible videos.
Again, I know these people and I know that they are only wanting to see watch the video, and they do not want their names attached to a stupid video.
My advice is to avoid these applications at all costs. If you do happen to view one of these videos, quickly go into your settings and delete the application and associated posts before the possible damage with respect to the relationships with your friends and family are impacted.
Thank you very much for your article. It help me to get rid of such annoying bug.
SMH Just go into account settings and disable postings to timeline.
Ashish – Glad I could help.
Not organic searches at all, its so deceitful the way socialcam posts videos without permission. Viral by force, instead of by reality.
Socialcam should be called Socialscam. It has so many bugs and no one to answer for them. As of today if you click on the Email Contact link on the bottom of a Socialcam webpage (to report a bug for example) the address they provide bounces (Delivery Status Notification (Failure)). Beware of commenting…Of course it’s public and if you inadvertently make a comment on a video (thinking you are making it in the FB UI) good luck trying to remove it. Socialcam does not have a remove comment option. I would definitely steer clear of this app. If you see a video on facebook watched by a friend on Socialscam, 99% of the time you can find it on YouTube.
you can usually google the video, watch it on y.t. , off facebook, to see it without getting stuck in that “access info” crap
Not sure if anyone would be interested, but I made a little bookmarklet to allow you to view the videos without requiring adding the Facebook app. You can find it here… michael.theirwinfamily.net/articles/jquery/using-socialcam-without-all-facebook-mess
I just tried contacting Socialcam but none of their email addresses work. Even their report privacy problems email doesn’t work. It’s really scary. Socialcam DOES NOT LET YOU REMOVE YOUR ACCOUNT. Clearly this is a serious violation of privacy. They create an account on you without your permission, then, they give you no access to that account. There is no where to report the problem because none of their email addresses are real. They are all fake. go ahead and try it: Try sc@socialcam.com or privacy-sc@Socialcam.com These addresses don’t work. If you read their privacy disclaimer, you will also notice numerous other falsehoods. http://socialcam.com/privacy_policy I just wish I knew what agency I could contact to report them. If anyone has any ideas, please post them here.
It’s far more insidious than that. Quite possibly Socialcam is using illegal tactics to defraud its investors. Consider the process: You open your Facebook feed and see that a friend has viewed a video. The video looks interesting so you click on it. You are prompted to download the Socialcam app. Ok, I’ll bite (I can always delete or block the app later if I decide, right?) After downloading the app, you are redirected to a Socialcam webpage that contains the video. You write a comment, “Cool.” (Which is instantly public by the way and cannot be retracted). But you are not just viewing the video, you have unknowingly opened a Socialcam account with your Facebook info and it’s completely public. Later you decide you don’t like the app so you delete it). But this does not delete your account on Socialcam (which many people don’t even know they have). Your profile (with your Facbeook picture) and a lot of other personal info persists. If you [quite accidently] figure this out [that you still have a Socialcam account] you cannot not delete it. Not unless you download the app again and go through the same process. Only then can you delete the Socialcam account.
So why is this fraud? Well, first of all, most people don’t even know they have a Socialcam account. They think they have simply watched a video. So, Socialcam’s claim about getting 4 million users in one day [or whatever the hyperbole was that prompted a rush of investment] is eclipsed by the fact that 399,900,950 users turned around the next day and deleted the god awful app that is getting vitriol on FB feeds. But Socialcam can still inflate its number of users because most people who watched a video didn’t know they were signing up for an account. So the folks investing top dollar on Socialcam are doing so based on a bogus number of users.
Socialcam is headed for trouble in another area as well. If you look at its privacy page (http://socialcam.com/privacy_policy) you will discover there is no venue for reporting privacy violations (which itself is a privacy violation and will attract a number of lawsuits). The two listed emails are bogus. Likewise on Socialcam’s official blog and FAQ page. Email contact? All bogus. There is no way to reach anyone at Socialcam. Socialcam may not even have an office. There is nothing that indicates a company named Socialcam exits in the inconspicuous print center at 665 3rd Street in SF.
Socialcam is actually a Socialscam. You’d be wise to keep moving or become its next roadkill.
Some good comments here! Thanks for sharing. Keep spreading the word and informing people of the dangers of this app.
I wanted to watch a video on socialcam. When I seen all the permissions I opted out. A week later I seen videos on my wall that said “I jus watched”, that I have no idea what they are. So I removed them from my fb apps, 30mins later another video. I made a report with fb
I pointed out this on my blog a few days ago, and have a running conversation there with Socialcam’s community manager on Twitter. They are clearly trying to pass these YouTube videos off as their own. The meta description on each video that appears in your Facebook newsfeed is “Video recorded with Socialcam” even though these videos are clearly old recycled YouTube videos. Here’s my full conversation with her: http://www.loganabbott.com/post/22678504530/why-do-some-videos-on-socialcam-appear-to-be-embedded
This continues to be an issue. Please tell your friends on Facebook to stop using these applications. Show them these comments! It is really concerning.
I work in sales, and I have a facebook page which has a lot of my customers on it. Now my personal views are liberal. I got customers who are ultra conservative, I got a customer who are liberal, I got customers who think this is terrible and others who think the exact thing is the best thing ever. So I keep my page business focused/neutral in political tone.
However Social cam has posted videos to my wall that have outrages titles however the actual content is docile. And this created an issue with a cilent of mine. Luckily I encouraged him to watch mentioned video he did and agreed the title was much worse then the content. Either way I do not like social cam. We’ve all watched videos that we do not want our business partners and co-workers to know we watched. The video doesn’t change or show any thing bad.
my husband business facebook page received one of the social cams and the video is not appropiate for their business page I am trying to help delete it but it just says mark as spam but is still on their page how do I delete it
I am having the same problem. I have deleted socialcam on FB, blocked it, marked it as spam, reported it, and have even sent messages to FB and STILL on when my friends view my Timeline they can STILL see it under my “recent activity” even though when I view my own Timeline & etc., it is gone… I want it gone from my Timeline when others view it as well… this there seems to be no answer for, and my request for FB to fix it has gone unanswered. Can anyone help?
I finally worked out how to kill this completely… one article I read suggested Socialcam might need to be temporarily re-added, so that I could stop it from the socialcam website itself. It seems, when I clicked on the video I automatically created an account (separate to FB) on Socialcam. When I cleaned Socialcam from my FB and thought I had got rid of it, my friends could still see it on my Timeline, even though I could not see it anymore myself. Apparently, this was happening because I had not first modified the socialcam account settings in my socialcam account and on the video viewed on socialcam. So, even though it was gone from my own FB pov, socialcam was still allowing my friends to see it. Finally, I reactivated socialcam, went to their site and changed my profiles to stop videos from appearing on my Timeline, and also blocked the video itself from being able to be seen on my Timeline. Then I went back and removed the new activity from my FB and reblocked socialcam. Now I simply need to delete my socialcam account. Very messy, and quite annoying, but finally it worked. :o(
True so true. STAY AWAY FROM socialcam. this is my email. and you are welcome to email me. to get my expierence with socialcam.
A couple of my friends got caught looking at soft core stuff with this app. It posts directly to Facebook when you watch something. Don’t sign up if you value your privacy.
im having trouble trtying to login in my socialcalm account i really want to delete it but i cant. i didnt know anything about socialcalm i was on my iphone n decided to make a socialcalm it didnt even ask me for a passowrd when i made it . when i was done doing my profile n i log out. now im trying to sign in with my email but its askingfor a paassword i dont know what to do i really do need help
This goes hand-in-hand with the theme of my recent article on why you should never use the Follow-All button on Pinterest (http://bit.ly/PcW5Zn)
I was shocked at times to see what videos people were watching as it showed on their news feed. I am very careful about the content I interact with, and this was yet another example.
I was using SocialCam to do video blogging, and very quickly removed myself from that platform. I will stick to YouTube, thank you very much.
it is just a big mess