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.
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.
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.
It's not all that hard to get someone's number. Tell a FOAF that you lost it, look up public records, call their work & say you need to speak to them urgently. Especially easy if the victim hasn't told everyone that they're being harassed.
Look at how abusers will create fake Facebook & twitter profiles to sully someone's name - this is just offering another vector for malicious behaviour.
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.
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... ... 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...
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.
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.
"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.
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...
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!".
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.
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.
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)
17 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 36.4 ms ] threadI 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.
Look at how abusers will create fake Facebook & twitter profiles to sully someone's name - this is just offering another vector for malicious behaviour.
The opposite. It's setting an extra-low bar for number-changing. That's taking things seriously.
"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... ... 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...
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3050606/china-is-building-the-mot...
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.
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...
It's intrusive and nasty.
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.
Basically, anything that is above level 4 of this (http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html) is worth listening for.