This post originally appeared on Business Insider.
Peeple, which enables humans to rate one another as users would rate businesses on Yelp, has gone offline. The company’s Twitter, Facebook, and even website are no longer accessible. The co-founders have remained silent as to why this change happened.
When attempting to access forthepeeeple.com, we received a “not found” page, though some users are being sent to another landing page with the following message: “Join the positive revolution #oct12,” according to the BBC.
Oct. 12 is presumably the date when the founders of Peeple, Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough, “will be taping for an exclusive talk show and expose our concept to the world,” the duo provided in an email to the BBC.
In the email, Cordray also confirmed that the human rating app is still set to launch in November of this year on iOS and Android.
After the app-based company made its initial announcement inviting potential users to join the beta test, many people responded with scathing backlash and tweets that shunned the app.
Opposers also set a Change.org petition in motion to ban the launch of the app.
“It’s the kind of bullshit mash-up that Silicon Valley loves,” comedian John Oliver said on Last Week Tonight. He later added, “The Internet essentially exists so people can say vicious things about each other, and we don’t need another app to facilitate that.”
Others speculated that the app plans might be a hoax. On Snopes.com, people noted that the announcement of Peeple was abrupt, and that there was no previous mention of it on tech blogs or sites and that there were no specific details provided about the app.
Onlookers may have already gotten a teaser of what that video will discuss, after Cordray posted a response to critics of the app on LinkedIn last weekend.
In her post, the co-founder tries to position Peeple as a “positivity app,” writing that the death threats and insults she received after her interview with the Washington Post are good examples of why she did not want to promote negative feedback on her app:
I have surrounded myself with positive people for 34 years and I don’t plan on changing it now.
That’s why Peeple is focused on the positive and ONLY THE POSITIVE as a 100% OPT-IN system. You will NOT be on our platform without your explicit permission. There is no 48 hour waiting period to remove negative comments. There is no way to even make negative comments. Simply stated, if you don’t explicitly say “approve recommendation”, it will not be visible on our platform.
I want the world to be positive and this is how I’m going to inspire it by creating the world’s largest positivity app.
We have reached out to Peeple for more details and will update when we hear back.
