TikTok’s U.S. ownership change last week has some users looking for alternative platforms. One app that has been gaining traction is UpScrolled. This is a social network that promises to be impartial on political agendas. The app is currently ranked 12th overall and 2nd in the social networking category in Apple’s App Store.
UpScrolled blends the familiar features of 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 Essam Hijazi, a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian technologist, with the aim of giving users a place to “freely express thoughts, share moments, and connect with others,” according to the app’s website. The app’s development team says they are “building a platform that belongs to the people who use it, not to hidden algorithms or outside agendas.”
“UpScrolled is the foundation of a digital ecosystem that puts power back in the hands of people, not corporations,” Hijazi said in a statement on UpScrolled’s website. “This is more than just an alternative to Meta, X, and TikTok, it’s a reimagining of what social media should be: a space where creators, communities, and businesses can thrive independently with true control, transparency, and accountability.”
The app, available on both iOS and Android, is responding to a surge in new users, but the company says it’s scaling to keep up with demand.
UpScrolled had about 41,000 downloads between Thursday and Saturday, when the TikTok deal closed, accounting for nearly a third of its lifetime installs, according to data from market intelligence provider Appfigures. UpScrolled has averaged about 14,000 downloads each day since Thursday, representing a 2,850% increase in daily downloads.
The app has been downloaded a total of 140,000 times to date, including 75,000 US-based installs.
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In a post to X, the company said, “Well, this is a new thing…it came out fast enough to blow out the servers,” adding, “Frustrated? Yes. Emotional? That too. We are a small team building what Big Tech is gone. Right now, we’re caffeinated to catch up on what you started. Bear with us. We’re working on it.”
The surge came after TikTok announced last Thursday that it had entered into a deal with a group of non-Chinese investors to form a majority-U.S.-owned joint venture to continue operating the social app in the United States. The company ByteDance will own less than 20% of the new company, while the venture’s three managing investors – Oracle, private equity firm Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX – each hold a 15% stake. Some users are concerned that TikTok’s new U.S. investors may have political allegiance to Trump.
After the takeover, some users accused the app of potentially censoring certain political content. The criticism also included a handful of high-profile users, including Sen. Chris Murphy and singer Billie Eilish, who expressed concern that TikTok was suppressing or restricting posts critical of ICE. Additionally, some said they were unable to search for information about the ongoing protests in Minneapolis following the killing of Alex Preti by Border Patrol agents.
However, TikTok believes these issues are due to an ongoing data center outage that is impacting the app’s functionality.
Concerns were also heightened after TikTok released an updated privacy policy that allows the app to track things like users’ GPS coordinates. Because of this, some users recommend deleting the app and using an alternative, making UpScrolled one of the popular options. This is largely due to its promise to never shadowban anyone and to “give every post a fair chance.”
UpScrolled isn’t the only company seeing a rapid increase in users after the acquisition. Skylight is a TikTok alternative built on open source technology and says it currently has over 380,000 sign-ups and continues to grow.
