Spooked by the deal finalized last week to sell part of TikTok to a US investor group, some users have sought alternatives to the popular social media platform.
Many are turning to UpScrolled, an app founded last year by a Palestinian tech entrepreneur who has promoted it as an alternative to mainstream social media outlets that he says have silenced pro-Palestinian voices.
UpScrolled has surged to become the most-downloaded social media platform in Apple’s app store — and it has also been flooded with anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content.
“Thanks for this app. Let’s hope it continues to grow. It is terrifying how much control zionists have over all of our media. We are rapidly losing our freedoms,” wrote one user in the comments of UpScrolled’s post announcing it had reached 1 million users.
The app’s creator, Issam Hijazi, was born in Jordan and lives in Australia.
He says 60 members of his family died in the Gaza war and calls Israel’s war in response to Hamas’ invasion of Oct. 3, 2023, a “genocide,” a term that refers to the intentional destruction of an entire people.
“Since the genocide happened, and is still happening, it changed everything in me: my perspective to life, to work, to what I want to look for, and I felt I was complicit by working for these big techs,” Hijazi said last September at ArabCon, a conference held by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn, Mich.
Hijazi said he believed “shadow-banning,” or suppressing the visibility of accounts, was common for pro-Palestinian social media users.
“I was one of those users. I was posting about what’s happening in the genocide,” he said.
“I’ve got friends all over Europe, the U.S., and everywhere [and I was] asking them, do you see this content? They say, what content?
“It’s great to go out in the street and protest; it’s great to gather and talk and share and all that,” he said. “But if we don’t become independent, digitally, speaking with platforms, with products, and then help one another to grow these platforms, we will not be able to get far.”
Larry Ellison, a prominent pro-Israel entrepreneur, has reached a deal to purchase the US operations of TikTok. The deal was forced under US law and supported by major Jewish organizations including JFNA, which cited anti-Semitism on the platform as a reason that change was needed.
Earlier this month, the anti-Israel UpScrolled said that it had about 90,000 regular users. On Jan. 29, Hijazi announced the platform had reached one million users.
On Jan. 28, UpScrolled ranked second among overall AppStore downloads on Apple devices behind ChatGPT. Among social networking apps, it ranked first.
“Now that Tiktok has fallen officially under control of Zionist billionaire and MAGA oligarch Larry Ellison, who bought this app on behalf of Israel to censor pro Palestinian speech and speech criticizing the US and Israeli regimes. I need you guys to switch apps,” said TikTok influencer Guy Christensen in a post on TikTok.
“At least download this app called UpScrolled, it’s a new social media platform, no censorship, no ownership by billionaires who put their interests and biases onto you to control you.”
Within minutes of downloading UpScrolled, users are likely to see anti-Semitic and anti-Israel content.
“This is a safe space to openly say, I stand with Khamenei, Hezbollah, Houthis, & Hamas #ResistanceIsNotTerrorism,” read one post featured Jan. 28 on the app’s “discover” page, which allows users to find new accounts to follow.
Posts include obscene references to and threats to Jews.
Elsewhere, users promoted Holocaust denial and alleged that Israel carried out the 9/11 terror attacks.
One user used a photo of Hitler as a profile picture.
“UpScrolled does not tolerate hate speech, propaganda, or bad-faith behaviour, but it also refuses to silence voices quietly or without explanation,” reads a blog entry on the
UpScrolled website.
“It is not a free-for-all; it is a space built on dignity, accountability, and respect.”
How content is moderated on social media has been a longstanding concern for Jewish watchdogs on alert for anti-Semitism online.
This week, the group CyberWell released its annual State of Online Antisemitism report which found that roughly half of anti-Semitic content was removed across the platforms it analyzed. The platform with the lowest rate of removal was X, whose owner Elon Musk has pledged a hands off approach to moderation.
The highest was on TikTok, which took down nearly 90% of anti-Semitic posts.
UpScrolled’s website says the platform prohibits certain material, including “violence,” defined as “threats, glorification of harm, or support for terrorist/violent groups,” and “harassment and hate,” which included “bullying, targeted abuse, or attacks based on race, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, or similar traits.”
The platform also has an in-app reporting button to flag posts, profiles, or messages, according to UpScrolled’s rules and policies page.
UpScrolled spokesperson Gabriella Bord said its moderators had been unable to keep up with the influx of content this week.
“Our content moderation hasn’t been able to keep up with the massive rise of users this week,” wrote Bord.
“We’re working with digital rights experts to grow our Trust & Safety team and are beefing up our content moderation to prevent this.
“We apologise to all impacted users, thank you for being part of Upscrolled.”
For some on the site now — and for Hijazi — the relative paucity of moderation could be a boon, not a bug.
“We are no longer depending on unethical social media platforms,” Hijazi wrote in a November post on Instagram.
“UpScrolled is a platform where your activist content will not be censored. No matter if you speak about Palestine, Sudan, climate, inclusivity or any other topic.”
Or as a new user said in response to the latest post, about the surge in downloads, “In this app, I feel right at home. I can write and speak freely and comfortable without using symbols, wordplay, or circumvention tools to bypass Zionist algorithms.”
