MIDDLETOWN, N.Y.—A platform dedicated to promoting clean and traditional content has opened in Orange County on Independence Day, receiving a warm welcome from the city’s mayor and other local officials.
“It’s a perfect day: Fourth of July, we’re celebrating the diversity of America and the freedoms that we have—freedom of religion, freedom of speech—and all those freedoms that we have that are being expressed in this building,” Middletown Mayor Joseph DeStefano said in a speech at the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the company’s newly outfitted three-story building.
“We want people to be able to stay with us, and we want them to feel safe, and we want them to bring their kids here, because it’s a safe and clean place,” Qiu told The Epoch Times. He sees Gan Jing World as an alternative to the existing social media platforms, which, he said, are commercially driven and programmed to hook people in, even when doing so could be psychologically harmful.
Qiu wants the new platform to do the opposite: to bring positive energy and convenience to people’s lives.
Content the platform currently features includes curated articles and original videos offering daily insights in news, culture, arts, education, health, and life. The platform is currently only in Chinese, but plans to launch an English version soon, with apps for both Android and iOS to come.
The company, which recently relocated from California, was founded by Chinese dissidents who fled the persecution of Falun Gong under the Chinese communist regime.
Launching the platform on July 4 is more than a coincidence, said Qiu, noting that the free speech the platform promotes is one of the foundational values of America.
“We want people to deliver the message that they want to deliver as long as it’s clean, it’s pure, and it’s useful,” he said.
DeStefano, the city mayor, welcomed Gan Jing World to Middletown, calling it “a win for our city and a win for our region.”
“There’s nothing more I can ask, as a city mayor, than to have people be direct and honest with me, and help when necessary,” he told The Epoch Times. “And honesty, the two-way-street transparency, it’s all there. So, for me, I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to come into our community.”
He described the platform’s family-oriented concept as a “safety valve” allowing people to use the internet with confidence.
“The company will thrive. And if the company thrives, Middletown will thrive with it,” he said.
City attorney Alex Smith expressed a similar view. “I think it’s a great mission,” he told The Epoch Times. With negative and hateful messaging prevalent on the internet, he said, for someone to try to “present a different face” seems a positive step.
“You can’t force it on people, but you can convince people that this is the right thing to do. It sounds like this is a good start,” he told The Epoch Times.
Jasper Fakkert, editor in chief for The Epoch Times, also congratulated the opening of the platform at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“It’s so hard these days to find a platform dedicated to truthful, clean, and traditional content,” he said. “The Epoch Times applauds the launch of the platform and looks forward to finding ways to collaborate.”
