New dystopian app Peeple lets you rate anyone – and anyone rate you
It was only a matter of time:
You can already rate your hotels, restaurants, doctors, teachers and who knows what else online.
The new app Peeple has taken this quantifying trend to its dystopian logical conclusion, by building a platform where you can rate and review anyone you like – and anyone can rate you.
Your former boss, your ex, your boring neighbour. All users need to leave a review about a person is their phone number.
The app, which is being described as a "Yelp for people", allows users to assign people a rating between one and five stars. And you won’t be able to remove negative reviews.
Peeple has yet to actually launch, but understandably, people are already freaking out, and initial reviews give the ratings app very low ratings indeed.
“This is disgusting”, writes one anonymous user on the site. “I rate the people who developed Peeple as a definitive fail,” writes another.
It seems the slew of negative comments posted online has irritated Peeple's founders, now hoping to remove feedback from Facebook in a glorious ironic twist:
https://twitter.com/swearyanthony/status/649557150889410560
In response to some criticism, the app's founders have pointed out that only positive reviews go up immediately. Bad press is put in a queue so that any disagreements over the accuracy can be vetted, and although you can't get rid of negative reviews, if an untrue review is posted you can petition the app to have it taken down.
Furthermore, you have to make reviews under your real name, and pledge that you know the person, either “personally”, “professionally” or “romantically”.
Co-founder Julia Cordray said in an interview with the Calgary Herald:
We feel this is the ultimate social experiment. Let’s look at everyone in the three ways you could possibly know someone — personally, professionally and romantically — and let the world rate them, while allowing yourself to be rated.
The app, valued at $7.6m, is expected to launch in November.