Peeple: is controversial human rating app actually a hoax?

News of a controversial new app that allows people to rank each other emerged this week, sparking outrage. But is the Peeple app simply one big marketing hoax?

What is it?

Developers branded the app a "Yelp for people" – allowing users to rate people based on their personality, professionalism and dating skills. Users will receive a star rating, but will not be allowed to delete negative comments made about them, nor will there will be an opt-out clause.

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The brainchild of Canadian marketer Julia Cordray and Californian mother of two Nicole McCullough, the app is reportedly undergoing beta testing and is due to launch next month.

"The Peeple app allows us to better choose who we hire, do business with, date, [choose to] become our neighbours, roommates, landlords/tenants, and teach our children," the women say. "There are endless reasons as to why we would want this reference check for the people around us."

What was the response?

There was an immediate – and predictable – backlash. Many branded the app "creepy" and "terrifying", pointing out the huge potential for abusive and bullying behaviour. Women's Aid said it was concerned for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. "The app could provide a perpetrator with yet another avenue through which to abuse his victim," the charity warned.

"It's not merely the anxiety of being harassed or maligned on the platform – but of being watched and judged, at all times, by an objectifying gaze to which you did not consent," says the Washington Post, which broke the story.

But the owners have insisted that users will be forced to sign up to a list of guidelines intended to prevent bullying, adding that the way the app functions is not yet set in stone, The Guardian reports.

Is it simply a hoax?

An investigation by Snopes, which researches online hoaxes, seems to suggest so. "The entire concept appeared to have been conceived as late as 12 August 2015," says researcher Kim LaCapria. "[It] seems primarily geared to promoting video content involving Peeple co-founders, with virtually no independent verification of the app's actual existence". She also points out that McCullough appeared to have "no online footprint of which to speak" before Peeple went viral.

Hoax or not, experts say the app is unlikely to even be approved by Apple's app store. The company's guidelines stipulate that any app that is "defamatory, offensive, mean-spirited, or likely to place the targeted individual or group in harm's way" will be rejected.

Developers are also expected to encounter a number of legal a privacy difficulties too, according to Steven Heffer, a partner at the law firm Collyer-Bristow."I can only see a lot of headaches," he told the BBC. "It looks to me like potentially a recipe for a legal disaster."