Peeple: An App That Allows Users to Rate Other Humans

If users feel uncomfortable rating friends and partners, maybe Peeple will professionalize: think Yelp meets LinkedIn. It’s called Peeple, and as the Washington Post reports, it’s the terrifyingly ill-conceived new app idea from two women who don’t seem to understand how disgusting an idea this is, Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough. Additionally, any negative reviews will be held for 48 hours in case the individual in question disputes the review.

“If the person you are searching for is not in the app you can add their name, profile picture, and start their profile by rating them”.

The app requires users to log in via Facebook and submit a phone number, theoretically in an attempt to fend off malicious reviews.

Where once you may have viewed a date or a teacher conference as a private encounter, Peeple transforms it into a radically public performance: Everything you do can be judged, publicized, recorded. “We want to operate with thoughtfulness”.

Peeple will also prohibit posts containing profanity, sexist comments or anything concerning someone’s personal health, according to The Week. And you can’t delete bad, inaccurate or biased reviews – that would defeat the whole goal.

The app is getting a few negative criticism because of how a few of the information can’t be edited.

The creators describe it as a “positivity app for positive people” and are planning to launch in November. McCullough and Cordray seem to have answers for a few of them, but not the answers these skeptical folks were looking for.

Tim Short posted: “I respectfully would like to tell you the idea of Peeple causes revulsion in any ordinary person”. We are bold innovators and sending big waves into motion and we will not apologize for that because we love you enough to give you this gift.

They insisted that bullying will “never be tolerated” and that it is against the terms and conditions to rate someone you do not know.

“By joining our community you can be seen by the people that know you and rate and be rated by that community”. You have worked so hard to get the reputation you have among the people that know you.

As my LAist colleague Jean Strinh put it, “It’s like the real life Burn Book”.