Peeple is for one type of person.
It seems like the general consensus about Peeple, the proposed new app touting itself as āYelp for peopleā is that it is the worst idea ever. Iām glad about that.
My first thought on hearing about Peeple, and their system of letting a third party start your page without your consent, and without the ability to opt out, was that meant my rapist could start a page about me. Without my consent. And control how others viewed me by āreviewingā how they feel about my personality, my integrity, my believability, a woman who was the teenage girl he raped as punishment āfor being ~a bad friend.ā Peeple puts my reputation at the mercy of a criminal. Again.
Peeple could put me in physical danger.
My second thought was that the ex I changed my public name to avoid could start a page for my real name and, unbeknownst to their intentions, people who are still privy to my legal name would comment ā letting them know where I am, what Iām doing, and how I live now. A casual acquaintance in my new life, thinking they are leaving a kind āreview,ā would give my ex a window through which they could break into my life, my home. Since I canāt opt out, the safest choice for me would be to minimize the number of people who even know me ā could review me, even positively. Peeple allows a sadistic abuser to isolate me from family and friends. Again.
Peeple could put me in physical danger.
My third thought was that Peeple is the ultimate tool for outing people. A positive āromanticā review, viewable to someoneās āprofessionalā sphere, means those social circles intersect. For many queer people, even people who are fully out in their personal lives, that is a job threat. I am super, super out in 75% of my life ā but the 25% where I am not out is where I draw most of my income. Being outed to Conservative prospective clients not only jeopardizes my livelihood, it could tell homophobes who, and where, I am and what I do. And, coupled with my job, when to find me.
Peeple could put me in physical danger.
Not even to get into how I feel, as a Jew, about a system of categorizing human beings by numbers and allowing third-party control. It seems, idk, familiar, and like a bad idea. I donāt need the kids who drew swastikas on all of my stuff in middle school to rank me or rate me or in any way be part of the public presentation of my self.
I am, and should be, in control of the public presentation of my self.
(Space between āmyā and āselfā because I mean my SELF, my ME-ness, the total package of who I am to the world. And who I am to the world is not who I am to one ex, to one employer, to one friend. Who I am to the world should be determined by me, not filtered through others and claimed by a third party.)
Peepleās creators claim that they are empathetic entrepreneurs, but their suggestion that ānegative reviewsā (OF YOUR PERSONALITY???) would encourage people to ājust work things out!ā shows a stunning lack of empathy ā or basic understanding ā of living with any kind of marginalization.
Like many queer people ā well, like most humans in general ā my life has layers and circles of influence. They donāt need to touch. Who I date has no bearing on how I work, and how I work doesnāt affect how I make friends or who I want to make social connections with. How many people will lose out on jobs because a prospective employer can see that theyāre gay ā but in a capacity that canāt be proven, taken up with HR, defended against?
I can understand that for the creators, the idea of outing likely never crossed their minds. Further than that, many straight people seem to think that itās a one-time catch-all event and that if a queer person is out somewhere, theyāre out everywhere. But in a society where hate crimes happen, where peopleās careers are ended, where family members are disowned, where ideologies and work are dismissed, because of sexuality, Peepleās assumption that professional and romantic circles should ever touch is deeply dangerous.
(Not to mention that itās gross: professional and romantic circles SHOULDNāT touch. Unless youāre Jim and Pam on The Office. Allowing someoneās workplace superior to see, or rate, or participate in any way, in their romantic/sexual life is harassment and just kinda disgusting.)
How many students might I lose if their parents decide they donāt want a queer Jew working one-on-one with their child? One of the appās creators claims that she thinks Peeple is an aid to āknow who to trust with her children,ā but the more I think about the app, the more her statement feels like āknow who wonāt expose my kids to diversity I disapprove of.ā
Frankly, if you need a number rating on an app to judge who should be around your kids, you shouldnāt have kids. The intense underground networking of abusers and pedophiles that already exist would only benefit from Peeple: give each other high rankings, āvouchā for each other, appear harmless ā and gain more victims, or discredit the claims of existing victims. The same goes for circles of violent MRAs, PUAs, domestic abusersā¦ the Law & Order viewer in me says āhell, even serial killers.ā If people start to rely on numbers like Peeple, rather than on interaction and intuition, to judge peopleās safety, everyone hurts. But especially the most vulnerable in our society, like children.
People cannot be āvertically integrated.ā
Someone who is a 5-star employee, the nicest guy in the office, can be a 0-star life-or-death-warning domestic abuser. Peepleās algorithm of privileging āpositiveā reviews not only dismisses that people are not the same in all areas of life, but dismisses the reality of such a personās propensity for danger. Peepleās algorithm says, āsure, heās abusive, but heās also always on time and tells good jokes, and that means more in the long run!ā
There is no connection between someone who is nice and someone who is good. Someone who is kind and someone who is trustworthy. Abusers of all types rely on their charm and their likability to pass undetected, and Peepleās algorithms can only make it easier. I would guess that my rapistās rating will be very high: he was very smart and charming and funny and passably good-looking if you ignored his shark-dead eyes. My abuser was the class pet of every teacher heād ever had and the kinda guy who was buddies with just about everyone.
That doesnāt mean they should be trusted with your kids. (Or yourself.) The conflation of likability with trustworthiness or goodness is always, always a bad idea.
And all of this completely ignores mass trolling! The Peeple creators claim that they donāt think anyone would ātalk smallā on their app, and that people are required to use their real names, but as Kat Blaque demonstrated this weekā¦ online terrorists donāt care. To look at the mentions that harass Jill Filipovic, Lindy West, #ShoutYourAbortion, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Deray McKesson, ANYONE who speaks controversially, is to see that people who make ātalking smallā a lifestyle choice DO use their real names. They think theyāre right.
And they can ruin lives. Ask Anita Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn or Brianna Wu.
The āsafeguardā of needing a phone number to review someone is laughable. Or would be, were it not so ineffectual that itās terrifying. Earlier this summer, I was targeted by an individual or individuals for a [thing I canāt talk about because thereās an inquest ongoing but whatever] and part of their harassment strategy was to sign me up for automated long-distance phone calls that arrived every ten minutes, day and night.
I had never given these individuals my phone number. But uh, the phone book exists, and records are hackable, and knowing someoneās phone number does not prove you know them ā or have ANY right to dictate how other strangers can view them.
If I score negative reviews, en masse, for being an outspoken feminist, am I supposed to work harder to reverse that? Even if their reviews arenāt shown, would my low āstar ratingā mean that I need to change who I am to garner favor with people who hate the intrinsic truths of my being? Mollify who I am to earn back higher ratings from the people who want me to be silent?
Peeple is less a tool for positivity than a tool for social control through threats and intimidation. We donāt need any more of those.Ā
Beyond that, the idea of a singular rating that integrates āromantic, personal, and professionalā lives into one āpersonalityā only applies to one type of person: the freelance independently wealthy workaholic app creator, probably.
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