An Australian-Palestinian founded app, UpScrolled, has surged in downloads, rising into the top ten charts of the App Store following ongoing concerns over censorship on TikTok and the announcement of TikTok’s partial ownership by a Zionist billionaire.
UpScrolled, a social media app alternative to TikTok, has risen to number 5 on the App Store, with over 100,000 new users flocking to the app from TikTok, X and elsewhere in the last 24 hours.
Popular pro-Palestine activists are urging their followers to join them on the new platform: “UpScrolled promises no censorship, no billionaires, and no biased algorithms. Free yourselves. This is the future,” said one activist.
UpScrolled is a short-form video app developed by Palestinian-Australian developer Issam Hijazi. The platform markets itself as offering a simplified feed, no manipulating algorithm interventions, and no shadowbanning – features which TikTok users say resemble the earlier days of the platform.
Rise in popularity
The app has now hit the top 10 charts of the App Store across the US, the UK, and Australia. The app climbed from number 30 to number 11 on the US App Store within hours.
UpScrolled’s official X account said: “We left you alone for 24 hours. You told someone. They told someone. They told everyone. #11 US #12 UK #14 Aus. Time to scroll differently.”
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Ten hours later, UpScrolled posted another update revealing astounding growth yet again: “Top 10. Three countries. Overnight. US #5 Aus #6 UK #8. Zero ad spend. Zero permission asked. Just people who wanted something different and found each other.”
TikTok’s changes
The surge was mostly reported after an updated TikTok policy, as well as the partial acquisition involving US-based Zionist billionaire Larry Ellison.
The shift to TikTok’s US ownership structure was finalised on January 22 through a $14 billion deal, where American operations were placed under a new entity, TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, with U.S. investors — including Oracle — holding a controlling stake.
Oracle is owned by Zionist billionaire Larry Ellison.
UpScrolled’s story
UpScrolled, founded in 2025 by Issam Hijazi, an Australian-Palestinian engineer, aims to promote transparency and fair content access, aiming to tackle traditional social media algorithms.
Hijazi created the platform in response to censorship of Palestinian voices online, which has become a recurring issue not only on TikTok, but also on Meta.
UpScrolled’s website says the platform allows users to express their views without “censorship, shadowbans, hidden throttling, or pay-to-play favoritism.” It also states that the app does not push political or commercial agendas.
“They [Netanyahu, Israel, and Zionists] understand the real danger that TikTok has shown to the world, of showing the real face of Israel to the world, and now they want to control that, just like they control CNN, Fox News, etc,” Hijazi said on a panel last year.
“They understand this [TikTok] is the new tool to control the brains of the young generation everywhere… at some point we won’t be able to speak out about anything that’s pro-Palestinian.”
Tragically, Hijazi lost 60 members of his family during the genocide in Gaza, and says he was deeply affected and inspired to contribute something back to the Palestinian cause in his capacity.
Updates privacy policy
TikTok users in the United States were shown a pop-up on the app asking them to agree to updated terms of service and the revised privacy policy to keep using the platform. These changes have come following the transfer of majority ownership of TikTok from China to a US-based entity, following pressure from the US government.
The changes to the privacy policy are also tied to Ellison’s partial ownership, which allows TikTok to collect data linked to AI-powered features, which says it may collect “AI interactions, including prompts, questions, files, and other types of information that you submit to our AI-powered interfaces, as well as the responses they generate.”
The policy also states: “We automatically collect certain information from you when you use the Services, including location information about your approximate location based on your device and network information.”
The mass flock to UpScrolled and its rise in popularity represents the desire for social media users to be able to speak freely about not only the Palestine cause, but many other social issues online.
