The controversial human-rating app called Peeple has succumbed to pressure and disappeared from the Internet following backlash.
The Peeple app was announced in mid-September and was set to be released in November this year. However, the person-rater mobile app received criticism over concerns of harassment and bullying.
Many online services allow users to rate restaurants, government agencies, movies, hotels and more and these organizations and agencies do not have control of what people are rating them. They can get good as well as bad ratings from users.
The Peeple app was also expected to give ratings but not to hotels or movies but to real humans.
"People do so much research when they buy a car or make those kinds of decisions," said Julia Cordray, one of the founders of the app. "Why not do the same kind of research on other aspects of your life?"
It was expected that users can log-in to the app and leave a review and rate who they know, even those who do not have a Peeple account. Such an aspect of the app created quite a controversy.
However, the founders of the app claim that trolling and bullying was next to impossible on the Peeple app. Registered Peeple users can only review others when they have a Facebook account and are over the age of 21 years.
People who want to rate someone, who do not have an account on Peeple, will have to give a valid phone number of the person who they want to rate. These individuals will get a text explaining that someone wants to rate them on Peeple and create an account.
Peeple account holders can give positive and negative comments about others. Positive reviews are automatically posted on the app while negative reviews are held in the private inbox of the person being rated for 48 hours. Founders also suggest that negative ratings will only appear if the person being rated allows the same.
For someone who does not have a Peeple account, only positive ratings would appear and negative reviews will not be posted at all.
"As two empathetic, female entrepreneurs in the tech space, we want to spread love and positivity," added Cordray. "We want to operate with thoughtfulness."
All of a sudden, the website of the app has disappeared from the Internet. The official Twitter and Facebook accounts have also been taken off without any message from the app founder.
It remains unclear why the founders decided to take down all information regarding the upcoming app from the Internet. The founders may be revising some aspects of the app before they officially release it in November. However, it could also be that the founders have dropped the idea of the app altogether due to the uproar the app has created even before its official release.
