UpScrolled, a social media application created by Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian entrepreneur Essam Hijazi, has grown in popularity in many countries, including the United States, as many users sought an alternative to TikTok, which was formally taken into custody US-backed investors and companies last week.
With Oracle owner Larry Ellison, a staunch supporter of Israel and a friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, acquiring a stake in TikTok’s US-based firm, social media users have raised concerns about censorship of pro-Palestinian posts on the popular app. TikTok’s global operations will still be run by its Chinese owner, ByteDance.
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Wednesday, Tik Tok forever Restricted Emmy Award-winning journalist And Al Jazeera contributor in Gaza, Bisan Owda, calls for outrage and boycotts from her supporters. The app has also been accused of unprecedented content censorship ICE violence in the US.
UpScrolled, which was founded just over a year ago, surprisingly rose to the top of US app downloads this week, ranking first in the “social networking” category of free apps on Apple’s App Store on Wednesday. It was also among the top apps downloaded by Apple users in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
Meanwhile, the app is getting thousands of new downloads as disgruntled TikTok users flock to the platform, drawn by the promise of “transparent technology.” UpScrolled reported that the platform’s servers crashed momentarily over the weekend due to a flood of new users.
Here’s what we know about the new app that’s shaking up the social media space:
UpScrolled enables a trio of photos, short-form videos, and text posts, making it feel like a combination of X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Its interface is similar to X and users can like, comment under or repost posts.
So far, users on the app seem to be using it more for text and photo posts than the short-form videos that TikTok is popular for.
UpScrolled also has a “Discover Page” similar to Snapchat. By far the most popular topic on the Discover page is Palestine. The app is flooded with hundreds of posts depicting the ongoing suffering in the Gaza Strip or standing in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Some high-profile individuals joined the new flock of upscrolled users, including Chris SmallsAmerican labor activist and former Amazon union organizer who joined others on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in July 2025 to try to break the blockade on the Strip.
Jacob Berger, the Jewish-American actor who starred in the popular American crime series Brooklyn Nine-Nine and who was also on the Freedom Flotilla, is also on the app.
Earlier this week, some users on the app reported crashing video uploads. UpScrolled said in an update to the app on Thursday that this is the result of more user downloads and that bugs have been fixed.
UpScrolled was founded in July 2025 by Issam Hijazi, a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian developer who previously worked at big tech companies like Oracle and IBM. It is supported by Tech for Palestine, an advocacy project that funds pro-Palestine technology initiatives.
Hijazi said in an interview with tech news site Rest of the World that he was inspired to leave his big tech career behind and create an alternative amid Israel’s destruction of Gaza, which the United Nations Commission of Inquiry has declared a genocide. The rate of content censorship on popular apps, Hijazi said, was a key driver.
“I can’t take it anymore,” Hijazi is quoted as saying. “I lost family members in Gaza, and I didn’t want to be involved. So I thought, I’ve done this, I want to be useful.
“I saw this gap in the market, a lot of people were asking why there wasn’t an alternative to a big tech platform for their content, which was getting censored. So I thought, why not make our own? I just rolled up my sleeves and built it,” he continued.
In a Report lLast year, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese accused IBM and several other big tech companies of what she called “Israel’s genocide”. Social media apps like Instagram, X and TikTok have accused Shadow of banning users who post pro-Palestinian content.
UpScrolled only claims to control illegal content, such as hard drug sales, but nothing else. Hijazi said the app’s algorithm isn’t designed to keep people scrolling like TikTok and others.
“It’s not because we don’t know how: it’s very easy to design an algorithm to do that,” Hijazi said in the interview. “But I don’t want to do that because I know what it can do to people, psychologically, especially the younger generation.”
UpScrolled says its feed remains entirely chronological, a feature that has long been removed from other popular apps despite complaints.
Posts on the Discover page are currently ranked based on engagement, though the team is experimenting with using AI to restructure the feed based on user behavior.
On its website, UpScrolled says it wants to give users a place to “freely express thoughts, share moments and connect with others.” The app belongs to the people who use it and has “no hidden algorithms or outside agendas,” the company says.
As of Tuesday, UpScrolled had been downloaded nearly 400,000 times in the US and 700,000 times globally since its launch in June 2025, according to estimates by marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
US downloads of the app began on January 22 – the same day as TikTok Signed the contract to create an American-controlled US version of its app.
Sensor Tower estimates that, as of Tuesday, 85 percent of UpScrolled downloads in the US occurred between January 21 and 27.
On Wednesday, UpScrolled was number one in the “Social Networking” category in Apple’s US App Store, beating out Meta’s Threads, WhatsApp and TikTok. It was the sixth free social app on Google Play for Android users, where TikTok (and TikTok Lite) reigns supreme.
The app has also been widely downloaded in Canada, UK and Australia.
“Crazy load on our servers. So exciting!” Founder Hijazi posted on the platform on Sunday after the site reported crashing its servers with an increasing number of new users.
“Sorry for the errors and glitches, we are increasing our capacity to handle the load. We expect things to be more stable in the next 12-24 hours,” Hijazi wrote.
What are the censorship concerns regarding TikTok?
Since the TikTok US deal went live last week, the tag #TikTokCensorship has been trending on US sites of social platforms like X and Instagram.
Users are accusing TikTok of suppressing videos in support of Palestine. The ban on Bison Owda appears to support his claims.
Amid outrage over the military’s deadly crackdown on immigrants and US citizens, many are also accusing the content of criticizing United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This week, ICE officers killed an emergency nurse Less than three weeks after Alex Pretty killed another civilian, Renee Goode. Others argue that any anti-Trump criticism is being similarly overshadowed by the ban.
Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a Tuesday post on X that he would investigate TikTok after users reported flagging it for content about California Gov. Jeffrey Epstein, who is accused of having relationships with several high-profile figures. Including President Trump.
Separately, TikTok users have reported video errors on the app since last week’s business deal. Creators say they are seeing zero views on their videos and experiencing slow uploads.
In a statement on Monday, TikTok said the problems were caused by a “major infrastructure issue caused by a power outage” at one of its US data center partner sites.
What other apps have become popular in recent years?
Skylight, which was launched in April last year, is another app that is gaining prominence as a TikTok alternative.
The American short-form vertical video app has gained more than 380,000 users and surged in downloads over the weekend, tech website TechCrunch reports.
The other is Bluesky, which aims to rival the X and is slated to launch in 2024. It is widely used by users opposed to the right-wing ideology of X’s owner, Elon Musk. Bluesky, owned by CEO Jay Graber, had about 1.5 million active users as of September 2025.