It’s 12:43 in the morning, and you have had a tough day at work. You are tired, thinking slowly, and feeling a little anxious that you should already be in bed to catch some rest before a 6 a.m. wake-up call. And then you get a text from a random number. You check it. It is from some equally random app called “Peeple.” The text states that a mysterious individual has written a review about you on Peeple’s website. Your anxiety level instantly rises. You don’t know this person; you don’t know what Peeple is. How did they get your cell number? You decide to check the review and it isn’t about your business. It’s about you. Personally. You look at the clock. It’s 1:06 a.m. and now you can’t sleep.
There is a firestorm brewing about the launch of a new app called Peeple, scheduled for release in November 2015. It’s catchphrase of “Character is Destiny” is similar to that of a motivational poster displaying a gigantic snow-capped mountain from the mid-1980s with the word “Challenge” underneath. It’s riveting stuff. The Washington Post describes the app as “basically Yelp, but for humans” and indicates that a user will be able to write reviews and assign ratings to any other person in the world. You can’t opt out once a user puts your name in the Peeple system and you can’t delete bad or biased reviews. If this sounds like litigation just waiting to happen, it’s because litigation is just waiting to happen.
Fortunately for Peeple, it has received a valuation of $7.6 million. The owners had better hope the initiative is well-funded, too, because if the app launches in its current form, they can expect a landslide of subpoenas and lawsuits. Media backlash has been vicious against Peeple since awareness of the app has gained traction. Even 14th century poetry has been referenced, with one article describing Peeple as akin to Dante’s Inferno’s “third circle of hell.”
The problems are many: privacy rights, data collection, impersonation, harassment, stalking, first amendment issues, defamation, bullying, misappropriation, collection of information related to children. The list goes on. While the app has been pitched as a Utopia-like place to share positivity, the reality is that it likely will breed negativity, cultivate revenge, and ultimately spiral deeper and deeper into a toxic pool of hate and mistrust. The owners seemed to have overlooked the ease of registering multiple fake Facebook accounts and using Internet-sourced anonymized phone numbers that trolls can hide behind to post whatever reviews they like.
Forget the negative reviews for a moment; what about the scenario where you don’t want to be reviewed positively either? What if a reviewer of you has nothing but glowing comments that don’t breach Peeple’s terms of use? Can anything be done? Must you now remain constantly vigilant and aware of every tiny interaction in your life for fear of being vilified or brought into the glare of the public eye?
There are other rules that apparently govern the use of Peeple, yet it is too early to determine their effectiveness or strength:
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You have to be 21 years old. (Age requirements on websites are notoriously simple to navigate.)
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Your Facebook account must have been active for at least six months. (It remains to be seen whether the code utilized by Peeple can test this and ignores the fact that many users will not try and hide behind fake Facebook accounts.)
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You must input the cell number of the person you are reviewing (creating data privacy and retention issues).
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Negative ratings for people won’t be displayed unless they’ve registered for the site (but individuals cannot read positive reviews on the site unless they are registered, creating a type of forced registration system).
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You have 48 hours to dispute a negative rating if you do register (but you are ridiculously supposed to contact the reviewer and somehow change that person’s mind that the review should actually be positive).
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The app supposedly will ban profanity, sexism and discussion of private health issues (yet it appears that the Peeple administration will be the judge, jury and executioner of such content).
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Critically, you cannot remove your profile.
All of this at the very least amounts to a threat to those who value their privacy, let alone their reputations. In a move just dripping with irony and a hilariously misguided attempt to stem the negative feedback they were receiving, the owners of Peeple recently tried to deactivate the comments section of their Facebook page. Hypocrisy aside, this probably doesn’t bode well for Peeple’s founders’ ratings on their own site when it goes live. They may even want to consult an attorney about all those negative reviews.
