Washington, DC — In the days following TikTok’s transition to majority American ownership, a relatively new social media platform called UpScrolled has experienced a dramatic surge in popularity, particularly among users disillusioned with the short-video giant’s recent changes.
UpScrolled, launched in mid-2025 by Issam Hijazi, a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian entrepreneur and former Big Tech developer, presents itself as a “transparent tech” alternative to dominant platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and X.
The app promises an experience free from censorship, shadow bans, and opaque algorithmic manipulation, allowing every post a genuine opportunity to reach audiences through fair ranking systems.
Users can post and discover a mix of content types: high-quality short- and longer-form videos with advanced editing tools, photos, text updates, stories and more.
Supporting chronological feeds for followed accounts alongside a discover section, the app is focused on users having authentic connections, open dialogue and genuine community-building in contrast to what it describes as the controlled, biased environments of established Big Tech services.
The timing of UpScrolled’s rise is no coincidence.
On January 22, TikTok finalised the formation of TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, a new entity majority-owned by American and global investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake, and the UAE-based firm MGX — each holding significant stakes — while ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, retained a 19.9 percent minority stake.
The restructuring, which addressed years of security concerns and averted a legislated ban, included safeguards for US user data storage (overseen by Oracle), algorithm retraining on American data and enhanced content moderation protocols.
Yet the transition triggered widespread user unease.
TikTok experienced outages and glitches alongside complaints about altered privacy policies that expanded location data collection, perceived shifts in content visibility and fears of increased censorship, particularly around politically sensitive topics.
Growth hits million
Some users have raised concerns that Larry Ellison’s investment in TikTok’s US entity could influence how pro-Palestinian content is moderated on the platform.
Ellison, a close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is the founder of Oracle, which holds a stake in the US-based venture. TikTok’s global operations remain under the control of its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
Users also accused the platform of throttling posts critical of the new ownership structure or related political figures and policies.
Uninstall rates in the US jumped nearly 150 percent in the days immediately after the deal, according to market intelligence from Sensor Tower.
Into this vacuum stepped UpScrolled.
Founded by Hijazi, who says he lost 60 relatives in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, amid frustrations over selective moderation on pro-Palestinian content during earlier global events, the app — backed in part by initiatives such as Tech for Palestine — gained traction as an impartial, no-censorship space.
Downloads exploded: Sensor Tower estimates placed US installs at around 400,000 and global figures near 700,000 by late January, with the vast majority occurring in the week following TikTok’s ownership change.
In a new video published on Thursday, Hijazi said UpScrolled went from 150,000 users last week to over 1 million in "less than a few days".
Explosive growth
Daily download rates soared by thousands of percent in some tracking periods, overwhelming servers temporarily and prompting the team to scale infrastructure rapidly.
App Store performance reflected the momentum. By mid-to-late January, UpScrolled climbed to the top of the social networking category on Apple’s US store, surpassing Threads, WhatsApp and even TikTok in some rankings, and featured prominently among the overall top free apps in the US, UK, Australia and Canada.
User ratings hovered in the high 4s from thousands of reviews, with many praising its privacy focus, lack of throttling and commitment to free expression.
Some high-profile figures also joined the growing ranks of UpScrolled users, including Chris Smalls, the American labour activist and former Amazon union organiser, and Jacob Berger, the Jewish-American actor known for his role in the hit crime series Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
While UpScrolled blends elements of multiple platforms rather than replicating TikTok’s pure short-video emphasis, its appeal lies in the promise of algorithmic transparency and resistance to hidden biases — a draw for those wary of Big Tech’s influence.
Hijazi has described the platform as a reimagining of social media: a place where creators and communities can thrive without undue interference.
The scale of content censorship across major platforms, he noted, was a key driver.
“I couldn’t take it any more,” Hijazi told tech news site Rest of World. “I lost family members in Gaza, and I didn’t want to be complicit. So I was like, I’m done with this, I want to feel useful.”
Whether UpScrolled can sustain this explosive growth amid scaling challenges and competition remains uncertain.
The surge has also raised questions about how openness is managed.
"UpScrolled is committed to protecting freedom of expression — but with that freedom comes responsibility," UpScrolled's FAQ says.
For the moment, however, its ascent underscores deeper user discontent with ownership-driven changes, algorithm opacity and content controls on legacy platforms — and a growing appetite for alternatives that prioritise openness in an era of intensifying scrutiny over digital expression.
