New Peeple app makes it possible for anyone to rate you - East Idaho News
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New Peeple app makes it possible for anyone to rate you

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People often say only God can judge them, when it all comes down to it.

Rating them, one the other hand, can be done by just about anyone with the new Peeple app — called "Yelp for people," according to Mic. And critics are taking to social media to voice their distaste of the app valued at $7.6 million.

Mic's report indicated app users can submit a name, rate the person and watch other users give scores from one to five stars.

Peeple's terms of service list abusive behaviors banned from the app, but The Huffington Post reported policing the reviews for problematic posts proves impossible with anything short of "huge resources for content moderation." This concern and others have spurred backlash on Twitter and Facebook.

According to The Huffington Post, author Brian Solis said the exact idea behind Peeple seems "deeply flawed."

"Discovering human qualities is supposed to be part of life," Solis said. "And how you and I live our lives, for the most part, is not expected to be gamified and recorded at every step, let alone partially reassembled through random dealings and unsystematic, imperfect reviews of those that get around to publish them."

The Huffington Post's article indicated the app's founders have tried responding to criticisms and concerns:

Still, all possible ails related to Peeple could be circumvented, and a large issue would still exist, according to The Guardian: the people on Peeple.

Marina Hyde wrote for The Guardian that people who need Peeple are "the loneliest people in the world." Hyde explained though the app's founders claim they had positive intentions with Peeple's creation, spending a minute or two on the Internet would make clear how rating things online goes.

Here's a hint: It's not positive at all.

And, according to Slate, any positivity seen in the app's reviews would be "empty" in the first place.

"It belongs to our culture of empty affirmation," Slate's article read. "It's of a piece with the implicit obligation to rate eBay sellers or Uber drivers as high as possible. And as the language of Peeple's statement suggests, it builds on the same foundations as positive thinking fantasies like 'The Secret.'"

For those determined to "shield themselves" from Peeple, refusing to sign up will prevent them from dealing with all the app's features, New York Magazine reported.

"Unfortunately, this won't fully shield you from petty neighbors or angry exes leaving negative three-star reviews that are viewable by other Peeple users, but it will prevent anyone from leaving lower reviews than that," according to NY Magazine.

Send Payton Davis an email at pdavis@deseretdigital.com and follow him on Twitter, @Davis_DNN.

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