So it seems the Meow Meow Beenz beta at Greendale Community College was a success. They just had to change the name, but it's now ready to roll out to the public.

Honestly I expect this will amount to nothing though. The reaction of everyone hearing about it will mostly be similar to the response here, there will be some hand wringing about what the world is coming to and fear of rampant abuse and a dystopian future where Peeple ratings determine the structure of society... Then the app will flop because most people realise it's a stupid idea (or they have forgotten about that story about it they saw shared on social media a couple of months ago), there will unfortunately be a few cases of people abusing it demonstrating the obvious problems, the bad publicity / legal cases will start flowing and it will become more trouble than it's worth to continue the app, at least in its stated form (perhaps being replaced by some version where people have to opt in to being rated, or ratings are replaced with something along the lines of number of "likes", with no "dislike" option).

"Defamation of Character", the website.
And where is Yelp's legal counsel? Are they busy preparing bills for Yelp? Thats what I would be doing.

Yeah. Because an app that likely only gets used by pissed off and bitter people with the sole purpose of slandering others is likely to be a good, objective representation of a human being.........wtf??? Why don't we...you know, just talk to people if we want to get to know them? Show actual interest in them perhaps?
I wonder how the legalities of this are. It sure sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen....

Although I'm not defending the app, at the least some measures have been taken against complete and total abuse that OP really should have included for the sake of a fair discussion that didn't just bank on outrage to spark a conversation:

"Positive ratings post immediately; negative ratings are queued in a private inbox for 48 hours in case of disputes. If you haven’t registered for the site, and thus can’t contest those negative ratings, your profile only shows positive reviews.

On top of that, Peeple has outlawed a laundry list of bad behaviors, including profanity, sexism and mention of private health conditions.

'As two empathetic, female entrepreneurs in the tech space, we want to spread love and positivity,” Cordray stressed. “We want to operate with thoughtfulness.'"

Further on in the article:

"That windy path is possible for Peeple too, Cordray says: True to her site’s radical philosophy, she has promised to take any and all criticism as feedback. If beta testers demand an opt-out feature, she’ll delay the launch date and add that in. If users feel uncomfortable rating friends and partners, maybe Peeple will professionalize: think Yelp meets LinkedIn. Right now, it’s Yelp for all parts of your life; that’s at least how Cordray hypes it on YouTube, where she’s publishing a reality Web series about the app’s process."

And of course, any inaccurate content can be reported.

That doesn't mean I think this is okay, but people clearly not reading the article has led to a lot of conclusions that will actually be more difficult to pull off. Granted, nothing is stopping somebody from giving somebody else a "positive" rating and then slandering them with the actual words, damage done until something happens with a report, and that's the biggest potential abuse I see here with the app in the current proposed form. It isn't as if somebody can just go in and start giving people 0's, calling them a slut, loser, bitch, etc..

but why

This won't end well.

And I agree with OdinHades, people who find out that they are rated or mentioned on that app without being a client or giving consent will ask for their removal, and if the owners don't do it, lawsuits will follow.

Who made this? I want to rate them.

this crosses the line, and should not be allowed.

10/10 can't go wrong.
I wonder if there is any law protecting my name from being used on an app i didn't sign for.
Even the base idea is shit, I mean everyone already knows wether himself or someone else is popular or not, just take ur eyes of ur smartphone and look at people.

I will be curious how libel cases will be handled.