Woman makes app that lets people rate and review you, Yelp-style. Now SHE'S upset people are 'reviewing' her It was oh so predictable. The founder of new slander-app Peeple has been surprised to discover people slandering her online. Julia Cordray, of Calgary, Canada, landed herself and her company a ton of publicity this week, appearing everywhere from the Washington Post to ABC News, talking about how the app – due to be launched …
To be fair to Julia Cordray, and there's a lot of unpleasant motivations being suggested here, it sound like she's just a bit clueless about the nastier side of human behaviour and the internet.
Yes, it would be nice to think that this website could be used for people to share just how wonderful their friends are, in a caring sharing, loving, flowers and fluffy cloud way. Wouldn't that be a great world to live in? But we all know that there will be just as many trolls, bullies, morons and arseholes who'll use it for exactly the opposite.
Julia Cordray's problem was, perhaps fortunately for her, she hadn't encountered enough of these people to realise what might happen. Well, now she has.
For is it not written in the Proverbs of King Solomon, It is better to meet a mother bear robbed of her cubs than to meet some fool busy with a stupid project.
Someone saw that one coming a few millenia in advance.
There's a certain irony in an anonymous poster on an internet community forum exhorting his fellows to "go live in the real world" to avoid becoming disconnected, don't you think?
Reality is a wonderful place, but I'm glad I don't have to live there full time.
Not irony. Prior to the internet, we still need to sit somewhere alone to read our papers. So it is perfectly reasonable for one in today's world to get news on the internet and still remain very much in the non-cyber world. Furthermore, it is wise to maintain anonymity online. The reason many websites make a lot of money is the ease of harvesting information for selfish gain. So the less information you release, the less nonsense you have to deal with.
"And that is exactly why you should never join such a website"
The beauty of this website is that you don't even have to join it! Your worst enemy can create a profile for you*, add a story about how you lost your job because of allegations of abuse, give a fake phone number so you never find out about it**, give you 3 stars so the review goes live instead of into your inbox for 48 hours***, and thereby make your life a lot more difficult.
It's a bully's wet dream.
* they'd need to create a fake facebook profile (or use their real name) but this is not difficult
** unless facebook has an API which verifies profiles, names and phone numbers, and Peeple use that API (for safety, never give facebook your phone number - or use their apps, because that gives them permission to know your phone number)
*** you'd obviously have to say something nice as well, or people with think you gave an abuser a positive rating
*** you'd obviously have to say something nice as well, or people with think you gave an abuser a positive rating
Positive whilst dropping warning flags in, shouldn't be too hard
Although the abuse allegations against (him|her) would have caused many to retreat into themselves, (him|her) remained happy, helpful and carefree, really going the extra mile to help everyone around them, even after losing (his|her) job at the nursery. (He|She) was so chirpy and devoted to helping everyone else out, we didn't even know the police had lost the evidence until (he|she) told us a week later. It's such an honour to know such a positive, helpful person
Rate nice and highly, because you're "complementing" the person
so the review goes live instead of into your inbox for 48 hours***
Whose inbox? The one on Peeple that I don't know about because the Fine Character who claimed to know me nicely provided the wrong phone number so the notification didn't reach me?
Or a Farcebook inbox that Peeple assume is mine (but demonstrably isn't)?
Your worst enemy can create a profile for you*, add a story about how you lost your job because of allegations of abuse, give a fake phone number so you never find out about it**,
Moreover, the Peeble web site faq says removing yourself from Peeble is considered a future feature!
I suppose you can try to convince Peeble to remove the abusively created profile manually, but it will probably take time to convince them it is malicious, and meanwhile all the world will see the fake profile. So a really evil attacker can spoil your reputation at a critical moment, does not matter if the page is removed a day later.
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Presumably it costs money to set this up and presumably she was hoping to make some money out of this once everyone started using it. Any idea how? Were the startup costs sufficiently great that she needed to convince an investor to back her? If so, how the hell did she do it?
@Eddy Ito
since you've collected a lot of personal details about people who aren't willing to join.
That's the bit I don't understand. Surely the DPA requires that they have my permission to retain and process my information, so if I haven't signed up for their service then its big fine time?
I get that they can host it in the USA and hide under protected speech laws, but I'm willing to bet an enterprising lawyer can manufacture a case against anyone submitting data on EU citizens as a violation of safe harbour laws.
Any souless, destined for hell ambulance chasers care to comment? :)
More logically corporate and public relations propaganda to destroy people they dislike and to write wonderful glowing reviews of who ever pays them to do so. The fitting appliance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scold's_bridle for the truly ugly gossips who launched this get rich quick scheme.
Keep it running long enough and get it big enough that some social media giant buys it out.
All "giants" have significant exposure to legislation which takes a very dim view on this by the nature of being HQ-ed or operating in areas with stronger data protection, libel legislation and/or various online anti-abuse laws. This is a liability of pangalactic proportions even compared to the liability Google took on with YouTube (and managed to shrug off). None of them will touch it even with a 18 feet long electrified cattle prod.
> Presumably it costs money to set this up and presumably she was hoping to make some money out of this once everyone started using it. Any idea how?
Welcome to the world of start-up financing, my dear chap.
It doesn't matter if your business idea involves serving turds on a stick, if you convince the VCs that you're going to reach X million people, you get the money. Just don't ask.
"Peeple currently has a valuation of $7.6 million (£5 million) based on the amount invested, which is around $250,000 (£165,000)." http://uk.businessinsider.com/peeple-yelp-for-people-app-2015-10
I guess my £500 car has a valuation of £15k based on the amount invested.
So I am now looking for some wealthy investors prepared to share in the benefits of this once in a lifetime investment opportunity. Of course the more that is invested, the more the car is worth.
"It doesn't matter if your business idea involves serving turds on a stick, if you convince the VCs that you're going to reach X million people, you get the money."
Which merely defers the question: where do the (idiotic) VCs get *their* money from?
I'm genuinely puzzled because I appear to live in a world where large numbers of unspeakably idiotic twats have access to large sums of money, and I'm feeling left out. I'm as big a twat as the next guy, but no-one has ever offered me cash it.
Edit: It would appear that Craigness has found the source of money. Apparently we paid for it.
The business model is blackmail. They have to allow users to add others arbitrarily. Without this option, there is no one to rate. Once these accounts are created, person being rated has to join the site to claim the account and make sure that they can contest negative reviews. All these people are then shown all sorts of ads.
> The business model is blackmail.
Might also be targeted advertising:
you have 100 1 star ratings, which leads us to deduce you're a cunt. So, you get Vagisil adverts
> I guess my £500 car has a valuation of £15k based on the amount invested.
Wouldn't recommend giving your insurance company that option though ;)
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