
Why Peeple Is Dangerous to Survivors and, Really, Anyone - davidbarker
https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2015/10/01/why-peeple-is-dangerous-to-survivors-and-really-anyone/
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btown
Unregulated public defamation that could turn an unsuspecting user into a
near-universal pariah if the app were to gain traction... sounds like
something out of Black Mirror! (There's no doubt in my mind any more that
Charlie Brooker is actually from the future.)

"Yelp for people" is such a simple concept that if Peeple doesn't do it,
someone else will. And they're completely protected by the law as service
providers under
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act)
... and since abusers practically by definition disregard the risk of personal
liability for their actions, the pattern feared by the post author will almost
certainly emerge.

The confluence of technology and free speech brings out the best in humanity,
but it also brings out the worst... and it's the already-marginalized who
suffer the most from things like this. The only thing we as technologists and
believers in the positive aspects of free speech can do, is to work as hard as
we can to build our own visions for the future. And hopefully the good
outweighs the bad...

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Frondo
If people does actually launch with the claimed feature set, I plan to launch
immediately after a site that makes it very easy to poison their database--put
in your own number, to lock it to a profile, but the name is always famous
politician X.

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greenyoda
_" If the Internet at large is allowed to send hatred and bile to my cellphone
via text notification without my consent, I will never feel safe again as long
as I own a cellphone."_

Isn't there a federal law that prohibits businesses from sending unsolicited
email/text messages to people that have no existing business relationship with
them?

Also, there are presumably laws against harassment and stalking that could
conceivably be invoked if someone was repeatedly sending you unwanted
messages.

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diyseguy
The name I suppose suggests that you can use them to freely take a piss on
people. I hope the Ashley Madison hackers are up for a new target.

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hobs
I understand that the author doesnt like the service, but the service requires
your current cell phone number to notify you.

I think most people who have been through a rough relationship and would
consider themselves a "survivor" would have gone far past changing their phone
number.

I dont mean to trivialize the authors experience, but this site being a way
for people to post anonymous mean or nice comments doesnt open any new avenues
if that person already has your contact information.

~~~
Sanddancer
Using "rough relationship" to refer to abuse is already trivializing it.
Regarding phones, blocking a number is trivial, and finding a number is as
well. I've had abusive family members manage to find me after a decade of them
not knowing my phone number, email address, etc, by putting out messages that
were relayed to me through forums I used to frequent talking about a
nonexistent "emergency". You have no idea just how creepy some people can get
in their desire to stalk and harass.

~~~
Dylan16807
>Using "rough relationship" to refer to abuse is already trivializing it.

The opposite. It's setting an extra-low bar for number-changing. That's taking
things seriously.

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throwawaygeu
Picture caption: "Ahh, white people." Yeah...

On topic- Today we want to ban app that allows you to say something about
someone, tomorow we will censor every comment! It's like reversal of china:
instead of "don't speak about gov." it's "don"t speak aboit me!". It is sad
how oversensitive and afraid of their own shadow people have became. Good
thing it's not all people that are like that. Only specific group. Same gruop
that likes to criticize and even dox people they do not agree with...

~~~
andygates
Legit crit is still a violation of privacy, even if positive. "Gave a super
disco party at OutRage!" is outing, for example, and that's before the trolls
game the positive-only rule for "throawaygeu does things to pigs that even
Cameron won't - 5 STARS!".

It's intrusive and nasty.

~~~
throwawaygeu
Criticism is never positive. Criticism has nothing to do with privacy.

Yes it's nasty and yes I don't like it. But it's nothing new, same happens on
blogs, comments, tweets, defamation on news articles... Oh you say this is
different? What do you prefer - bad comment about you and pig on that app, or
picture of you and pig on twitter? (Or just a pic of you in pycon...) If you
want to censor this app then you will have to censor whole net. And people
that would abuse it are not people you are thinking about.

~~~
rakoo
Criticism is positive if it's argumented and there's an actual reflexion; you
can potentially improve something based on the criticism, so you should always
have an eye on it. Anything else is just garbage and shouldn't be taken as
worthy.

Basically, anything that is above level 4 of this
([http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html))
is worth listening for.

~~~
throwawaygeu
Relativity. From side criticism can be seen as positive, but person recieving
criticism always will see it as "I found you errors/faults!". And it is person
recieving criticism that decides if it is constructive or not. And some people
claim that all criticism is "harrasement". (Eg dear Anita when proof of her
manipulations are shown)

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tomjen3
Moral panic. The service doesn't really adore you to do anything you can't do
with a blog or website.

~~~
gradstudent
Peeple is nothing like individuals blogging in their own little corners of the
web. It's organised and focused. People influencing and reinforcing each
other's opinions in a central place that anyone can access. And the subjects
of their criticism cannot opt out. The entire premise is complete bullshit and
the sooner it goes away, the better.

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empressplay
Privacy implications aside, I think even if they don't create profiles without
the person's consent it will still take off -- if you approach someone and
tell them that someone left them a positive "review" and would they like to
create a profile and share it, I would expect 80% of people will agree to
that. Flattery will get you everywhere.

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oneJob
China is building the same thing. But communism is evil and so their version
is bad. Capitalism and libertarianism and personal freedom are real concrete
good things, so Peeple is good. Sarcasm obviously, but this is a great real
world example of the ways in which technology is not ideologically neutral and
that US capitalism and Chinese communism are not mutually exclusive.

[http://www.fastcoexist.com/3050606/china-is-building-the-
mot...](http://www.fastcoexist.com/3050606/china-is-building-the-mother-of-
all-reputation-systems-to-monitor-citizen-behavior)

