China's increasing inequality and rocky transition to market capitalism has created a rising tide of wildcat strikes from independent trade unions, who have found powerful allies in national student communist movements whose members were made to study Marxism in an effort to purge the country's intelligentsia of "bourgeois" ideologies of liberalism and democracy. Read the rest
Last July, the daily live trivia show, HQ, launched as an app. Players have a chance of winning anywhere from $1,500-$15,000 or more, depending on the game's generosity of the day (although winners split the pot, so that amount can be much less). Twice a day HQ asks 12 trivia questions (sometimes 15) with three multiple choice answers to choose from, and players get knocked out of the game if they click on a wrong answer. When I first started playing a few months ago, there might be 200,000 to 300,000 players at a time. But the game caught on quickly and nowadays HQ fans play with over 1-million others per game.
But that number might start to fall.
Last night Recode reported that HQ is raising $15 million, and that Founders Fund, "the venture firm founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, is expected to lead the round..." After Recode's report came a Twitter backlash, and the hashtag #DeleteHQ was unleashed.
Ashley Feinberg from HuffPost asked people to delete the app.
please delete HQ I know I am https://t.co/RoouZtCADS #DELETEHQ pic.twitter.com/0htRCIm03y
— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) February 2, 2018
And others chimed in...
Fuuuuck @hqtrivia provides a much needed break in the workday but their massive new investment from Peter Thiel is enough to make me #deleteHQ. He took away my number one love, Gawker. Fuck that guy.
— Katie Roscher (@ButtzGalore) February 2, 2018
Read the restI can't tell you how he'll do it, but I'm 100% sure Peter Thiel will use HQ to harvest your blood #deletehq https://t.co/al2FrY8Mnx
