By now you may have heard of a new app about to hit the marketplace. It is called Peeple, and it has thousands of folks outraged. The app has been called a “Yelp for people.” It will allow anyone to enter a person’s name into its database and then rate that person, complete with stars and a review. What could possibly go wrong?
There are so many problems with the very concept of Peeple it is difficult to know where to begin. One is left almost speechless with horror, disappointment and rage upon learning that privacy in American society has eroded to the degree that we will now allow for such an evil application of technology. We have known for awhile that the concept of privacy has been declining since the advent of social media, and along with it we have seen a corresponding decrease in empathy and a drastic rise in cyber bullying which has resulted in countless suicides. Social media has already proven deadly for some, but Peeple represents a new low when it comes to basic respect for human beings.
Basic respect used to mean that private or even semi-private interactions were kept private insofar as that they were never intended to be publicly consumed by an audience of millions. Conversations, romantic interludes, one-on-one outings, and even professional discussions are really only ever truly known to those who participate in them. Once a moment or series of moments between two or more people become fodder for widespread public consumption, the actual meaning is irrevocably lost. For this reason, people have traditionally kept interactions either between themselves and the other participants, or between themselves and a select group of close friends and family. In the history of the known universe, no private citizen, based upon the inherently biased perception of another, has been subject to scrutiny of the entire world.
Until now.
Peeple will include a ranking system of one to five stars; never mind that pigeonholing a person with a numerical value is both abusive and invasive. Never mind that the creator of the victim’s profile holds an enormous amount of bias based on his or her own perceptions of the victim. Early reports have stated that no one is allowed to opt out of this system, although the founder now says that she has heard users “loud and clear” that they want a way to do so. It is unknown whether her hearing this will actually result in a way for people to escape from this cesspool of danger or not.
Apparently, Peeple is legal, although it would be surprising if lawyers were not already drooling over the income they are going to receive over libel and slander lawsuits, and as well they should. It has been reported that negative reviews will not show up unless a person has already set up their own account on the system, but what about “positive” reviews that are actually back-handed tricks? It would be extremely easy to give a person a “positive” three star review and say something like, for instance: “I really love how so-and-so tries to conquer her natural inclination to refrain from being extra productive at work! Even though I am the one who does everything, so-and-so always offers advice from the sidelines without actually lending a helping hand to the team.”
In the example above, the system will have no way of knowing that the review is actually extremely negative, because the system is not going to be able to understand the human ability for nuance. Three stars looks like a good review, and with the addition of words like “productive,” “helping hand,” “love,” and “conquer,” the system will think that the victim has received a positive rating. The victim, since she has not opted into Peeple in this example, may never know that someone has written something so damaging about her. She may suffer significant negative consequences, up to and including possibly losing out on a job if a prospective employer sees the “positive” Peeple review.
There are many ways to game the system that are similar to the example above, but what about a positive review that reveals sensitive information that the victim does not want made known to the general public, or even to close friends and family members? For example, a person may receive a five star review for being generous to the rater. Unfortunately, the victim’s sister might see that review and begin questioning why her sibling is generous with everyone else, but not with family members. Perhaps the victim did not want anyone to know that she spent more money on her friend than on her sister.
Of course, the myriad issues with negative reviews speak for themselves. The new app may find itself so inundated with complaints that the entire operation would sink (which would only be a blessing to all of us.)
Peeple is so fraught with problems that one may only hope the founders come to their senses. Anyone should be able to opt out of this terrible new product and ban the app from ever accessing any personal information. Better yet, the founders ought to do some serious reflection on the dire potential consequences of their creation: cyber bullying, reduced self-esteem, and an ever-mounting increase in social anxiety, technology addiction, and interpersonal problems between individuals, even if nothing but positive reviews ever appear on the site.
Let us also hope the ACLU is watching this new app closely, as the organization’s legal work around our continually eroding privacy might become even more important than ever.