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rfmcdonaldJoe. My. God. and Wired were among the news sources sharing the news of a new app, a Yelp for people, described in this CBC report.
They're Canadian. How wonderful.
Vox had a somewhat neutral article suggesting that it might not be that bad.
The thing is, I have seen people making comments on public websites using their Facebook identities. This scarcely restrains them at all. An app like Peeple could easily serve as a platform to let shameless people do terrible things to other, without any identifiable recourse. The Internet is forever, but at least it was better than high school.
The real shame? Even if Peeple is stopped, or radically transformed, other like apps are likely to develop.
An app that allows users to rate people like they would rate a restaurant is scheduled for a November release, but it already has the internet up in arms.
Calgary-developed Peeple will allow users to rate other humans on a scale of one to five stars, much like a Yelp review.
All you need to create a profile for someone is their cellphone number. The subject of the profile cannot delete the comments or the rating, according to an article in the Washington Post.
"You're going to rate people in the three categories that you can possibly know somebody — professionally, personally or romantically," Peeple CEO and co-founder Julia Cordray told CBC Calgary in September. "So you'd be able to go on and choose your five-star rating, write a comment and you will not be anonymous."
Negative comments will sit unpublished in the person's inbox for 48 hours, giving them the opportunity to work out any disputes with the person who posted them, according to Peeple's website. If the dispute can't be resolved in that time, the comment will go live. The person can publicly defend themselves by commenting on the negative review.
They're Canadian. How wonderful.
Vox had a somewhat neutral article suggesting that it might not be that bad.
Peeple says it will take a number of precautions to prevent the service from becoming a cesspool of nasty reviews. Reviewers will be required to use their real identities as verified by Facebook, and new Facebook profiles won't be allowed to participate.
Positive reviews of another person — those rated three or more stars on a five-star scale — will be posted immediately, but negative reviews will be held until the subject has time to review them. If someone refuses to register for the site, those negative reviews will be kept private indefinitely.
So the emerging caricature of Peeple as an app for stalkers and disgruntled exes may turn out to be wrong. It may actually be harder to harass people on Peeple than on existing social media platforms.
The thing is, I have seen people making comments on public websites using their Facebook identities. This scarcely restrains them at all. An app like Peeple could easily serve as a platform to let shameless people do terrible things to other, without any identifiable recourse. The Internet is forever, but at least it was better than high school.
The real shame? Even if Peeple is stopped, or radically transformed, other like apps are likely to develop.
