The week is slowly reaching its peak, and it’s time to get a little upset about the absurdities of the internet again. This week, a planned app made a lot of headlines that spread through all media: Peeple. Because what could be better than giving people a rating so that everyone knows how “good” or “bad” they actually are?
Top Notes on the Internet
As a feminist-leftist good person, I inherently have something against rating systems that want to categorize people based on their qualities. While I appreciate such systems for services or products in some cases, there is indeed a limit for me when it comes to private individuals. Peeple, however, consciously wants to cross these boundaries and ensure that everyone can rate everyone else, for example in categories like Professional, Personal, and Romantic.
- Cortyn only cooks vegan food? 1 out of 5 stars in Personal.
- Schuhmann is complaining about words like “naturally” again? 2/5 stars in Professional.
- Dawid is bringing in the seventeenth intern? 4/5 in Romantic.
One might think: Well, whoever signs up for this is to blame themselves. But unfortunately, that’s not the case. The first drafts proposed that anyone could enter anyone else into the app as long as they have their phone number. This, of course, conflicts with several laws – but hey, just planning it, everything will be fine. The two developers initially showed no insight: “If someone always lies or is late, then everyone should know that. Because character is ultimately your fate.” By the way, one should not be able to delete negative contributions in the original version – because that would render the app useless.
The stuff they have, I would like to take as well.
Just a Joke?
But maybe Peeple isn’t as terrible as media reports might suggest. By now, many points indicate that the app might just be a joke. On the one hand, there was a very similar system in the comedy series “Community” in one episode that plunged the world into complete chaos – there, too, people could rate each other with 1-5 stars. Many messages from Peeple, including their YouTube videos, have since been deleted. The list of contradictory statements is long – yet the two developers do not deviate from their plans.
If it really is a joke, the developers have long missed the best time to reveal it as such. They have already rowed back way too often and weakened the plans for Peeple. By now, no one is supposed to be inducted into the service without explicit consent, and negative ratings are completely excluded. Peeple is supposed to be a platform of positivity. Or to put it with a good vulgar German expression: To hell with the wood fairy.
What do you think about the whole thing? Is the app a good idea and the next logical step or complete nonsense? Or is it just a prank to hold up a mirror to how much we are already allowing ourselves and willingly revealing?
