Chrissy Teigen outraged over Peeple app calling it 'Yelp for humans'

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Peeple is an app that will let users rate anyone they want out of five stars
Chrissy Teigen fumed that people need to be protected from bullying
Many likened it to a real-life Burn Book - a malicious catalog in Mean Girls
Twitter users found it hilarious when Peeple founders accused detractors of bullying and hit out at a parody account set up without their consent

By Mia De Graaf For Dailymail.com and Victoria Woollaston for MailOnline

Published: 15:38 EST, 1 October 2015 | Updated: 16:33 EST, 1 October 2015

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Chrissy Teigen has joined the millions of social media users hitting out at a new app that will let users review their friends, colleagues, and even exes with a five-star rating.

Peeple, dubbed the 'Yelp for humans', started trending on Twitter on Thursday after the Washington Post profiled the app, slated for release in November.

Within minutes, thousands of people had weighed in online, branding it a platform for bullies.

Chrissy Teigen was one of the millions of people hitting out at the person-rating app Peeple on Thursday

The free Peeple app is expected to launch in November on iOS. Members will be able to rate, and be rated in three categories - 'professionally', 'personally' and 'dating'. After signing in, people can search for friends and colleagues using their name and where they live, and profiles can be set up by other people

The Knozen app pits two people against each other using a range of questions. Some are work related, while others assess personality traits, such as 'Who would leave work early for a date?' (pictured left) and 'Who would pack for a trip way in advance?' Each time a user is rated (pictured right), they are sent a notification

Teigen fumed: 'In an age where both truth and gossip on the Internet can literally ruin lives, this #peeple app is horrible AND scary #yelpforhumans???'

She added: 'at least I signed up to have the world judge and grade me publicly. I f***ing hate this app and the boardroom table it was created around.

'We have to make sure our kids/teens stand a freaking chance in this world.'

Peeple is the creation of friends Julia Cordray and Nicole McCullough based in Canada.

It has been in development for the past year and is expected to launch on iOS next month. An Android version is still being worked on.

After signing in, people can search for friends and colleagues using their name and where they live.

Once found, the user can click on their name and select a star rating, out of five. Each rating can additionally be given a title and a description that explains the reason for the rating.

Many likened the app to a 'real-life Burn Book' - a pink book in the hit movie Mean Girls, starring Rachel McAdams and Lindsay Lohan, in which high school bullies compile malicious thoughts about their classmates

This user made a logo for the social media platform using one of the vulture cartoons from The Jungle Book

And one father tweeted this picture of something his child made to demonstrate how whimsical and potentially hurtful feelings can be. As it stands, users can rate anyone they want whether they have a profile or not

This user tweeted a meme from Jurassic Park which tells the story of a fight to contain killer dinosaurs

Alexandra Petri of the Washington Post riffed on Barbra Streisand's song People in her tweet

The app has been advertised for a year but rose to fame on Thursday with people warning of its dangers

HOW TO USE THE PEEPLE APP

After signing in, people can search for friends and colleagues using their name and where they live.

Once found, the user can click on their name and select a star rating, out of five.

Each rating can additionally be given a title and a description that explains the reason for the rating.

All ratings and reviews stay on the profile for a year, however, when a user makes a negative comment with a rating of two stars or less, the comment does not go live right away.

Instead, it goes into the user's app inbox and the two members have 48 hours to come to a resolution.

If a negative comment can't be changed into a positive, the comment will go live and people will have to publicly defend themselves.

If the person being searched for doesn't already have a profile on the app, someone else can set it up for them.

They will need their phone number to do this, though, and the person will receive a text telling them a profile has been created and who it has been created by.

And if the person you're looking for doesn't have an account, you can add one by putting in that person's phone number.

Many likened the app to a 'real-life Burn Book' - a pink book in the hit movie Mean Girls in which high school bullies compile malicious thoughts about their classmates.

'It's finally happened. A public burn book. #peeple,' one person wrote.

'If they wanted to be honest, they'd have just called this Peeple app "Burn Book" and been done with it. Way more Fetch,' another said, making reference to one character's catch phrase in the film.

And one person tweeted: 'I guess it’s called Peeple because Burnbook.com was taken?'

Cordray and McCullough hit out at enraged Twitter users for tweeting disparaging comments about their app without their consent - a suggestion that prompted many to tweet: 'Irony just died.'

'If you want to be a leading journalist best to pick up the phone and get the truth from us. Or just judge us?' the pair wrote to an opinion column after he wrote a scathing opinion piece about Peeple.

They also fumed at a parody Twitter account that was set up without their permission.

According to Cordray and McCullough, they have security measures in place to prevent bullying.

Members must be aged 21 and over and have a Facebook profile that has been active for at least six months to sign up to Peeple.

The app will also ask for phone numbers to prevent fake accounts or bots being created and members will be able to rate, and be rated, in three categories - 'professionally', 'personally' and 'dating'.

However, it is not clear how phone numbers will be used to verify a person's identity or obtain their consent.

In a comment describing their mission statement, Cordray and McCullough said: 'Your network lifts you up and says positive things about you so that you can have a strong online reputation and get job opportunities, access to more networking opportunities with like-minded people, interact with other single people, and have the ability to search others to make better decisions around your greatest assets such as your family.