A controversial app dubbed the “Yelp for people” and co-founded by an Orange County woman is quickly changing course after a fierce backlash online.
Peeple, initially billed as a way to review people and assign them a rating of one to five stars much like Yelp, was created by Nicole McCullough of Rancho Santa Margarita and Julia Cordray, a Canadian.
McCullough on her LinkedIn profile page stated that while volunteering on her homeowner’s association, she realized “there were no obvious ways to obtain a vetted list of people, professional or personal, to address the community’s needs. Whether it was a contractor, babysitter or just neighbors wanting to be neighborly, there were no means to easily connect people to each other and so peeple was born.”
When the online social network caught wind of the people-rating app, it fired back with gusto.
Twitter users and LinkedIn members berated the founders and protested the app, which promised users 21 and older the ability to create profiles of another person using their phone number. Users could then give the profile a rating.
Targets of negative ratings would be given notice and 48 hours to respond. If a profile went unclaimed and a user couldn’t respond to criticism, no negative reviews would be posted, according to a Washington Post story.
Commenters questioned whether the site would become another vehicle for cyberbullying and potentially libelous comments.
“Finally, a simple way to really hurt others by real name. I mean, really tear them apart and maybe drive them to suicide. Neat!” one critic tweeted.
The app, which is expected to launch Monday, was first couched as a way to find the ugly side of friends and associates.
“I wouldn’t want this app to just be positive,” said Cordray in a video recorded before news of the app went viral.
“We want to know, did he steal from you? Did she steal from you? Were they abusive? Do they have anger issues? Do they lie all the time? Are they narcissistic? These are the things I think are more valuable in knowing versus little egocentric things. We don’t live in a fairytale land. … It would be pointless if it was all positive.”
Neither Cordray nor McCullough responded to requests for comment. Before the app’s Facebook page was taken down, the pair said they could no longer comment on the hundreds of posts that posted to the page.
Comedian John Oliver jumped into the fray, announcing the creation of screamintothevoid.com as an alternative where people can enter missives that are instantly deleted.
“It gives you all the catharsis of typing hateful things about people into the Internet with none of the human consequences,” Oliver said.
In less than a week, a change.org petition received more than 7,000 signatures asking Apple and Google to ban the app, and a website for people who want to opt out was created.
On Sunday, Cordray posted a message on LinkedIn defending the company’s premise and reversing course to emphasize positive reviews.
“Peeple will not be a tool to tell other humans how horrible they are. Actually, it’s the exact opposite. Peeple is a positive only app. We want to bring positivity and kindness to the world,” Cordray wrote. “Peeple is focused on the positive and only the positive as a 100 percent opt-in system. You will not be on our platform without your explicit permission.”
Cordray wrote Monday that she and McCullough received death threats through Twitter and said the networking service didn’t protect them from abuse.
Social media guru Jennifer Mitchell, the director of digital and social media strategy for BRG Communications public relations firm, said Peeple seemed to be a mix of LinkedIn and Hot or Not, a website in the early 2000s that ranked people based on their attractiveness.
“We can go too far with authenticity,” she said.
Although the app is expected to have its beta test next week, it may not survive the criticism, Mitchell said.
“They would have to do something far and away for this to work,” she said. “I think anybody who knows what happened won’t be open-minded to it.”
Contact the writer: lwilliams@ocregister.com, 714-796-2286
