"Peeple" or "Yelp for humans" CEO on Dr. Phil [Update 2, 10/17/15]

Flames66

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My instant gut reaction to this is "If I ever find any review of any kind about myself on this site, I will burn the company to the ground."

Hopefully I will have a more measured response, but many people won't.
 

DefunctTheory

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Mar 30, 2010
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Jadak said:
Obvious objections aside, I see some real uses for this. For example, In the past I'd considered making a review site for local rental properties (student housing/apartments, etc..) In addition to rating the actual property, you'd be able to rate the landlords. Something like this would save on that aspect of development and instead link to their 'peeple' profile.

Certainly weird to just go about rating people you meet though...
That's a fairly specific thing though, and I have no doubt most people wouldn't object to renters rating their landlords, in their capacity as landlords.

This app throws that completely out. Though it does allow you to specify how you know the person (Professional, Romantic, and Socially are the choices, I believe), how wide open that field is means your rating is being applied to you as a whole person. You could have someone who's a fantastic landlord, completely fair, is on top of housing repairs, reasonable with late rent situations, the works. But if he's a miserable prick socially, then how do you sort that out? How do you insure that people he's pissed off in his social life don't get vindictive and lie, claiming he's shit at his job? Even if they do specify that there problems are completely social, could that still cost him financially? You simply can't do it - The well is poisoned, and the amount of work it would take to sort through this crap to make a fair analysis is down right Herculean.
 

lechat

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As soon as something requires facebook to function it's an instant fail on my part. No gen Y the universe does not revolve around social media.
 

FPLOON

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Corey Schaff said:
MarsAtlas said:
Corey Schaff said:
I hope they don't publicly broadcast that cell phone number. Even people who don't make it a habit of harassing people, see a number in a piece of media, and are tempted to call it; that's why they had to start using 555 numbers because people would call the number just to see if it was really X's number.
Even if they don't publically broadcast it they're still giving somebody's cell phone number to an organization that has no right to it in the first place. That alone is something that you could sue over. Now even if it still isn't put out, that number could be lost, it could be used by a staff member of peeple, it could be leaked, it could be given to solicitors, it could be pulled by the government even if its a pay card "burner" cell phone, etc. Even if it isn't broadcasted on the public profile there's still a dozen ways it could be misused that would be deserving of a lawsuit.
It could have been much, much worse though:

http://resizing.flixster.com/HryQyWjJEY5dks4tpZfhkXcRG5Y=/800x1200/dkpu1ddg7pbsk.cloudfront.net/movie/11/17/36/11173665_ori.jpg
*laughs* That movie was so hilariously bad! *continues laughing*

OT: Well, that's it... Fuck it! I'm finally changing my identity phone number! Sorry, very important people in my life and Barbrah, it's looks like I can't trust anyone anymore... Time to finally close up shop...
http://new4.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/Goodbye+everyone+i+ll+remember+you+all+in+therapy+_1bccab801baee31bc62495c239456280.gif
 
Sep 13, 2009
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I could see this greatly increasing the rate of name changes. This is actually kind of terrifying. I cannot see a way that this actually works out. You'll likely get extremes of circle jerk reviews like the "HAWT PIC, SISTAH" selfie comments, or you'd get reviews ranging from cruel, mean, and unsubstantiated assumptions.

All I can say is thank god you need to use your own account for it, although it still sounds ridiculously easy to exploit and get around.
 

Robert B. Marks

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So, I fisked the CEO's statement from the Peeple website. For those who aren't reading my Facebook page or Livejournal:

An Ode to Courage: Innovators are often put down because people are scared and they don't understand.

Or, because they're seeing an app with terrible possibilities for abuse.

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.

Congratulations - I don't know if you're trying to channel a serial killer talking to their victim or an evil/stupid CEO from a Jurassic Park movie...either way, you're succeeding with flying colours. But here's the thing - you're not an innovator. You're not Tesla inventing a new kind of electrical current. You're taking something people are already doing with businesses and applying it to other people. And, this isn't a gift - you're monetizing this.

We know you are amazing, special, and unique individuals and most likely would never shout that from the rooftops.

There?s a reason for that, which I'll explain below.

The people who know you will though...they choose to be around you and in your life and support you even when you don't like yourself.

Yeah, see, here's the thing. I may be a very minor public figure, but as an author and a writer I am a public figure. And I don't want anybody talking about who I am, or my family - I want them reading, enjoying, and talking about my work. If I acquire some measure of fame because of what I write, so be it...at least I'll have come by it honestly. Fame for the sake of being famous is hollow, empty, and useless. And, for that matter, my sense of value and self-worth does not require anybody to be singing my praises in public. In fact, I don't know of anybody who is psychologically sound who has a self-worth that depends on public praise.

We have come so far as a society but in a digital world we are becoming so disconnected and lonely.

I think it would only take five minutes reading Twitter or Facebook to disagree. Twitter is more likely to melt your face off from the trolling, though.

You deserve better and to have more abundance, joy, and real authentic connections.

Last I checked, one did this by getting off the Internet and connecting properly with the real world, doing real things with real people...also known as getting technology out of the way. You're talking about putting more technology in the way.

You deserve to make better decisions with more information to protect your children and your biggest assets.

Yes, well, we have this thing called "the news." And in the digital age, we have access to more information than we have ever had in all of human history. Call it a hunch, but I think we're good.

You have worked so hard to get the reputation you have among the people that know you.

Through my deeds. And one of the reasons I have the reputation I have among my friends and colleagues is that I don't go in for meaningless praise or self-aggrandisement. Funnily enough, not being a narcissist helps lead to a great circle of friends and colleagues.

As innovators we want to make your life better and have the opportunity to prove how great it feels to be loved by so many in a public space.

Again, I'm not a narcissist, so I really don't feel the need for this. Also, considering that from what I've seen of your current system, anybody can get abuse on somebody's profile by giving the post a five-star rating. So, we get to look forward to variations on "Steve is a great guy, and here's a list of all the farm animals he's sodomized this week!"

We are a positivity app launching in November 2015.

Angels and ministers of grace defend us. And, no, you're not - you're a social network based on gossiping behind people's backs.

Whether you love us or our concept or not; we still welcome everyone to explore this online village of love and abundance for all.

There's an important distinction I don?t think you understand: social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn are all about enabling users to share themselves with the world. Peeple is all about enabling users to share other people with the world, and your original setup was to let them do it without those people?s consent.

Consider this: the worst cases of online abuse and harassment have involved the harassers trying to push their victims into committing suicide...and one of the ways they do this is to destroy their target's self-esteem through negative judgements. Your "online village of love and abundance for all" directly facilitates this. How much blood are you ready to have on your hands? And, for that matter, how ready are you for the wrongful death lawsuits that will come your way once somebody succeeds?

Food for thought, Ms. CEO...food for thought.
 

Recusant

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Elvis Starburst said:
Founder Julia Cordray and co-founder Nicole McCullough have since received 50k of government funding since the app's creation, and the company's share values have already been listed at $7.6 million.
This part is what I find truly incomprehensible. Is this government funding to support the creation of this program? If so, why? And, perhaps more importantly- which government?

lechat said:
As soon as something requires facebook to function it's an instant fail on my part. No gen Y the universe does not revolve around social media.
Nor does it revolve around self-satisfied complacency. Unless I'm misunderstanding Elvis Starburst's post, it requires a Facebook account to use, not to be used on by. Even those of us wise enough to avoid Facebook aren't safe from this. That's why it's so unnerving.
 

Elvis Starburst

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Robert B. Marks said:
Good piece~ Thanks for adding it to the topic! It's like having a taste of Featured Content right in my own thread, haha.

But yes, this entire thing will only end in one gigantic legal mess. Not to mention the website was down for a time. I can only wonder why that is... There's no way this could possibly last long. That is, unless the government keeps funding it... Blah. Let's hope it sees an end soon enough. Hopefully these pieces will help play a part in wiping this off the face of the world.

Recusant said:
Nor does it revolve around self-satisfied complacency. Unless I'm misunderstanding Elvis Starburst's post, it requires a Facebook account to use, not to be used on by. Even those of us wise enough to avoid Facebook aren't safe from this. That's why it's so unnerving.
You're not mis-understanding. You need a Facebook account to make a post about someone else. The moment someone does, by using that person's phone number as a base (The person you're reviewing), an account is made without the person's consent. As for using the app itself, I'm not 100% certain if it needs a Facebook account. I'd bet on yes, considering one is needed to make a review to begin with.

And yes, it's horrifying. And only through informing people can we help bring it down.
 

DoPo

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Elvis Starburst said:
You're not mis-understanding. You need a Facebook account to make a post about someone else. The moment someone does, by using that person's phone number as a base (The person you're reviewing), an account is made without the person's consent.
I think there is an even worse aspect that hasn't been mentioned yet - to create an account you need a telephone number. Not the telephone number of the victim person, but just a telephone number. I can totally create a profile for anybody and give out a pre-paid telephone number then confirm it myself. Done, now a random person has a profile and it's not even under their control - any negative review can be posted and it will never, ever, be contested within the 48 hour period where it normally could be.
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

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At first I thought that was a joke, and then I realized it wasn't and these people are dead serious.

Fuck that shit.

Fuck it so hard that it flies into the next galaxy, and then bounces off that into a far away one.

Why did they think that was a good idea? How? I can think of at least five different ways that that can go horribly wrong, and can be abused. Easily.
 

Secondhand Revenant

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Since I've only used Yelp in relation to finding a decent restaurant nearby my first thought was this was a cannibalism joke. Suffice it to say this was more hilariously bad than I imagined.


DoPo said:
Elvis Starburst said:
You're not mis-understanding. You need a Facebook account to make a post about someone else. The moment someone does, by using that person's phone number as a base (The person you're reviewing), an account is made without the person's consent.
I think there is an even worse aspect that hasn't been mentioned yet - to create an account you need a telephone number. Not the telephone number of the victim person, but just a telephone number. I can totally create a profile for anybody and give out a pre-paid telephone number then confirm it myself. Done, now a random person has a profile and it's not even under their control - any negative review can be posted and it will never, ever, be contested within the 48 hour period where it normally could be.
Someone needs to do this to the person who made it. Might take a hint after that.
 

AntiChri5

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The only part of this that makes sense to me is the government funding it. Getting the NSA to spy on everyone is pretty expensive, after all. If you can get the general public to maintain a database on everybody else you can save so much money!

Unfortunately for them, it will likely be 80% outright made up bullshit.

The rest, like the existence of the app and that an actual living human would think of this, are ideas my brain refuses to accept.
 

CrimsonBlaze

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So, a.) I'm going to have to change my number to private or restricted, which will probably hurt my future resumes and posts I've made online, and b.) if that doesn't work, I'm going to have to spend my free time dealing with social media crap that I wasn't even allowed to opt out off (for f***'s sake, man, I don't have a Twitter, Pinterest, SnapChat, etc. because I don't want to deal with this stuff!).

I hope that we can Augment Your Pre-Order Cancel on this so hard that we leave the media w***ing to those who feel it is essential to their existence.
 

Dornedas

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Secondhand Revenant said:
Someone needs to do this to the person who made it. Might take a hint after that.
You wanna know something funny? I saw a tweet of the makers yesterday asking how they can disable and delete comments on their facebook. Or something like this. I never used facebook I don't know how it works.
They can't even handle the comments thrown at their company but they want people to be able to comment on one another directly.

As for my thoughts on the program:

I'm really torn. On the one hand it will obviously increase the suicidal rate of teenagers, which is undoubtedly a good thing. /s

On the other hand I don't have a facebook because I value my privacy and anonymity and I don't want my real name to be out there.
But I guess as a German I'm relatively from it.

Other than that I agree with Jim's (not Sterling) video on this idea.

And to end my comment I will rate all of you. 7/10 your bodies contain too much water.

Edit:
At least it reminded me of a funny joke.

 

RJ 17

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Robert B. Marks said:
We know you are amazing, special, and unique individuals and most likely would never shout that from the rooftops.

The people who know you will though...they choose to be around you and in your life and support you even when you don't like yourself..
Yeah...and as soon as one person who loves you sings your praises, everyone whose ever had a grudge against you will piss all over your face.

OT: Since everyone else has already pointed out how fucked up this idea is, I'll simply state this: you know who's REALLY going to make a metric fuck-ton of money? The person who designs an app that scans Peeple and removes any profile/review with your name any time one is found.
 

Josh123914

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Nov 17, 2009
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Isn't this, like, a complete abrasion of any longstanding privacy laws?

And does anyone find it a little suspicious that after it lost $35,000 in investors, a US government agency that "wished to remain anonymous" gave them $50,000 ?
 

Thaluikhain

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Ah, possibly this is a hoax:

http://m.snopes.com/2015/10/01/peeple/

If so, well, not good, why would you pretend this? But better than it existing.
 

SecondPrize

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If you were to put a team together and task them with creating the perfect application for online abuse, you could not expect a better result than this.
 

Robert B. Marks

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thaluikhain said:
Ah, possibly this is a hoax:

http://m.snopes.com/2015/10/01/peeple/

If so, well, not good, why would you pretend this? But better than it existing.
If this does turn out to be a Hoax, I think there will need to be a Garwulf's Corner on it...