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.
Translated to “a clean world,” social media platform Ganjing World aims to be a clean digital “ecosystem” where people can browse a wide variety of information, free of concerns about what they see or view, according to its CEO, James Chiu.
“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,” Chiu said. He sees Ganjing 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.
Chiu 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 into news, culture, arts, education, health, and life. The platform is in Chinese and English, with apps soon coming for both Android and iOS.
The content, in part, provides uncensored information on events in China and exposes atrocities by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It also gives a voice to the “Tuidang” movement, which encourages and helps people to quit the CCP and affiliated organizations. So far, nearly 400 million Chinese people have renounced their Party membership.
The company, which recently relocated from California, was founded by Chinese dissidents who fled the persecution of Falun Gong under the Chinese communist regime.
The Ganjing World platform was launched on July 4 for a reason
Launching the platform on July 4 is more than a coincidence, said Chiu, 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 Ganjing 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,” said DeStefano. “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 confidently.
“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 said. 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,” said Smith.
Written by Eva Fu
