'Yelp for humans' app Peeple vanishes online after backlash

peeple

(Peeple)
Peeple cofounder Julia Cordray.

Peeple, which enables humans to rate each other as users rate businesses on Yelp, has gone offline.

The company's website and Twitter and Facebook accounts are no longer accessible. Co-founder Julia Cordray addressed the deactivation of Peeple's Twitter account in a LinkedIn post:

"We have only ever had @peepleforpeople and have removed it off of Twitter as we felt that Twitter is a place for abuse not business and they don't do anything to protect its users."

But the company has remained silent as to why the site and Facebook account went dark.

When attempting to access forthepeeple.com, we received a "Not Found" page, though some users are being sent to another landing page with the following message: "Join the positive revolution #oct12," according to the BBC.

October 12 is presumably the date when the founders of Peeple, Cordray and Nicole McCullough, "will be taping for an exclusive talk show and expose our concept to the world," the duo provided in an email to the British broadcaster.

In the email, Cordray also confirmed that the human-rating app was still set to launch in November on iOS and Android.

After the app-based company made its initial announcement inviting potential users to join the beta test, many people responded with scathing backlash and tweets that shunned the app.

Screen Shot 2015 10 05 at 11.31.26 AM

(Twitter)

Screen Shot 2015 10 05 at 11.32.52 AM

(Twitter)

Screen Shot 2015 10 05 at 11.34.31 AM

(Twitter)

Opponents also set a Change.org petition in motion to ban the launch of the app.

John Oliver, the British American comedian, asserted:

"It's the kind of bull---- mash-up that Silicon Valley loves," he said on "Last Week Tonight." He later added, "The internet essentially exists so people can say vicious things about each other, and we don't need another app to facilitate that."

Others speculated that Peeple might be a hoax. On Snopes.com, people noted that the announcement of Peeple was abrupt, that there was no previous mention of it on tech blogs or sites, and that there were no specific details provided about the app.

Onlookers may have already gotten a teaser of what that video will discuss, after Cordray posted a response to critics of the app on LinkedIn last weekend.

In her post, the cofounder tries to position Peeple as a "positivity app," writing that the death threats and insults she received after her interview with The Washington Post were good examples of why she did not want to promote negative feedback on Peeple:

"I have surrounded myself with positive people for 34 years and I don't plan on changing it now.

That's why Peeple is focused on the positive and ONLY THE POSITIVE as a 100% OPT-IN system. You will NOT be on our platform without your explicit permission. There is no 48 hour waiting period to remove negative comments. There is no way to even make negative comments. Simply stated, if you don't explicitly say "approve recommendation", it will not be visible on our platform.

I want the world to be positive and this is how I'm going to inspire it by creating the world's largest positivity app."

We have reached out to Peeple for more comment on the deletion of its site and will update when we hear back.

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