Following the recent change in TikTok’s U.S. ownership, many users are exploring alternative social media platforms. One application that is gaining significant attention is UpScrolled, a social network that promises to remain free from political agendas. Currently, UpScrolled holds the 12th overall position in Apple’s App Store and ranks second within the social networking category.
UpScrolled combines familiar elements from platforms like Instagram and X, allowing users to share photos, videos, and text posts, discover new content, and send direct messages. The app was founded last year by Issam Hijazi, a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian technologist, with the goal of providing a space for people to freely express thoughts, share moments, and connect with others. The team states they are building a platform that belongs to its users, not to hidden algorithms or outside interests.
Issam Hijazi emphasized that UpScrolled is designed to put power back into the hands of people, not corporations. He described it as a reimagining of social media, intended to be a space where creators, communities, and businesses can thrive with real control, transparency, and accountability.
The app is available for both iOS and Android and is currently managing a large influx of new users, scaling its operations to meet the demand. According to data from market intelligence provider Appfigures, UpScrolled saw approximately 41,000 downloads between the Thursday the TikTok deal was finalized and the following Saturday. This accounted for nearly one-third of its total lifetime installs. Since that Thursday, daily downloads have averaged about 14,000, marking a 2,850% increase. To date, the app has been downloaded 140,000 times, with 75,000 of those installs coming from the United States.
The company acknowledged the rapid growth in a post on X, stating that the user surge temporarily overwhelmed their servers. They described themselves as a small team building what big tech companies have stopped being and are working diligently to scale up.
This user migration comes after TikTok announced a deal to form a majority American-owned joint venture, with its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, owning less than 20%. Some users have expressed concerns that TikTok’s new U.S. investors may have political allegiances, leading to worries about potential censorship of certain political content. High-profile individuals, including Senator Chris Murphy and singer Billie Eilish, raised concerns about the suppression of posts criticizing ICE. Others reported difficulties searching for information about protests in Minneapolis. TikTok attributed these issues to a data center outage affecting its app’s functionality.
Further concerns arose when TikTok updated its privacy policy to allow the collection of users’ GPS coordinates, among other data. This prompted some users to advocate for deleting the app and switching to alternatives. UpScrolled has become a popular choice, largely due to its pledge to avoid shadowbanning and to give every post a fair chance to be seen.
UpScrolled is not the only app experiencing growth. Skylight, another TikTok alternative built on open-source technology, reports it has now surpassed 380,000 sign-ups and continues to expand.