Today,
people use apps like Yelp to rate restaurants, hotels and stores, but what of
there was an app to rate human beings? Well this app could be available soon
for the public and it is called Peeple. This was created by entrepreneurs
Nicole McCullogh and Julia Cordary and the purpose of Peeple is to give anyone
the ability to review anyone else without needing their consent or knowledge.
Through this app users are able to rate and give their opinions about
individuals, just as people would do in apps like Yelp. This is app allows
people to know someone before they have even had the chance to have a
conversation with them. This app is the last stop on the digital frontier, but
this advancement can cause quite the controversy.
Peeple will allow for people to know everything about
someone without having to actually interact with them, which will cause human relationships
to further simplify and diminish. Human relationships have been diminished
because of the Internet and the technology that came along with this
advancement. People do not have the face to face contact like the generations before
us had because they did not have the Internet. They had to make their judgment
on people based on their own personal experience and through talking with other
people. With the creation of this app Peeple it will cause less contact between
humans because they will already know everything they need to know before they
even meet them.
Another problem for the app Peeple is the potential for
abuse, that can be in the form of bullying or excessive positive reviews that
can be suspect. People have the ability to put others’ self- worth in a single
number, which can cause this affect of dehumanization. That single number or
rating can affect people’s confidence and can truly affect their self-esteem.
People also do not have the ability to control who writes about them or what
they write. That means exes and former friends and colleagues who have a grudge
or are still angry with them can write hurtful and rude things because they
want to hurt that person. That means their judgment is not in the right place
and could be writing things that are untrue.
Peeple and other apps like it run into many problems because
of the dehumanization of society and the abuse it could cause. It allows people
to give their opinions and rate, but how accurate are these judgments that people
are writing. People should base their opinions of people based on their own
experiences and instincts. This app Peeple allows for minor benefits, but it is
not worth the greater damage it could have to society.
After reading your blog and a few articles about this new app, I am nervous about the future repercussions of this app on people's relationships.
ReplyDeleteThe app founder, Julia Cordray, says, "This is all about uplifting each other and helping each other and operating from positivity." On one hand, I can understand her hope for the result of the application but I think she is being far too naive.
As I read on hoping to feel less anxious about the launch of this app, I read some of the steps people have to take before posting. "The Peeple team stresses that people won't be allowed to write anonymous reviews. Users will have to sign in through their Facebook profile and must be 21 or older. To add a person to the database to be reviewed, the user must have that individual's cell phone number." Some of these obligations made me feel slightly better but not entirely.
I also found that if a "negative" comment is posted, it goes directly into the inbox of the person being and will not be posted on the web until 48 hours have passed. The idea behind this is to give the person time to react to a negative comment. My confusion with this idea is that, if the Peeple staff deems a comment negative, why would they still allow it to be published? Where is the line drawn?
My biggest concern about this app allows people to be reviewed without their consent. I feel that having people's opinions of you shared publicly without consent is unfair and disturbing. It seems this app is run on the assumption that people are good and will promote other people. While it would be nice if this was our world's reality, it is not. I am extremely nervous about the release of this app and really don't think it is a good idea.
http://www.newsweek.com/interview-peeple-founder-julia-cordray-yelp-humans-378561
ReplyDeleteTo address this app Peeple, I personally think that it is nothing we haven't seen yet. Social media has been ruling the internet industry. It is a way for people to communicate with each other online. They may know these people or they may not. People comment on the same photo or tweet often, and they at times do not know each other. This sounds like a rip off from Tinder. This app allows you to see people of the opposite sex or same sex in reference to their location to you. You can adjust the miles from about 5 to 100. The user does not necessarily know anyone who comes up, but they can "swipe right" if they are interested in meeting them in the future.
ReplyDeleteThis yelp app allows you to rate people without their consent. This also reminds me of a site called "formspring." This site allows for people to anonymously comment on other people's profiles. At times it was fun and harmless, but other times it was very offensive. People without the courage to tell them how they feel would anonymously talk on this site. Peeple sounds like a cross between Tinder and formspring.
I am against this app. It will generate a lot of controversy.