New Delhi: Palestinian-Jordanian-
Within weeks of its launch, UpScrolled crossed one million users, with downloads spiking to 29 times the previous baseline in January. Qatari news media organisation, Al Jazeera, reported that the surge happened after social media platform TikTok signed a deal to have an American version of the app.
The app ranked sixth among social media platforms on Google Play in the US. It also witnessed a hike in downloads across Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
Al Jazeera described the social media platform as a “combination of X and Instagram”. The interface is quite similar to that of X, where users will be able to upload a trio of photos, short-form video and text posts.
Even the TikTok users are running to join the social media application after the app promised “transparent tech”, Al Jazeera reported.
Issam Hijazi, who launched the app in 2025, shared on UpScrolled his excitement.
“Crazy load on our servers. So exciting,” he posted, before apologising to the users for the errors and glitches because of the high number of downloads.
“We are increasing our capacity to handle the load. We expect things to become more stable in the next 12-24 hours,” Hijazi wrote.
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New favourite
Hijazi has previously worked for IBM in Australia and as an advisor with Loyal VC, a venture fund dedicated to high-potential tech startups. He used his expertise in the field to make UpScrolled a sudden favourite.
Last week, between Thursday and Saturday, UpScrolled added more than 5,00,00 new users in 72 hours. The company had to scale their infrastructure by 400 per cent within 24 hours because it was not able to handle the user flow.
The social networking app is promoting the idea of “time to scroll differently”. The company is running with the tagline “Zero ad spend. Zero VC money. Zero permission asked”.
Speaking at the Web Summit, a technology summit in Qatar on 2 February, Hijazi said that certain social media platforms were not ethical, although he did not name them.
“These companies have enabled genocide, I am saying that clearly, they provided the technology for certain regimes that have enabled the killing of people in smaller areas, such as Gaza”, said Hijazi.
Although the app was launched last year, in the last week of January 2026, it witnessed a spike in usage after TikTok signed a deal with Larry Ellison, owner of Oracle, to create an American version of the application. Ellison, Al Jazeera reported, is a supporter of Israel and a friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Social media users on Instagram and Facebook, among others raised concerns over censorship of pro-Palestine posts.
Users have already expressed their anxiety over Meta’s policies of shadow ban, making it an ideal situation for UpScrolled to get the tired and disgruntled users.
“They’re not really creating something for humanity. They’re creating something to generate more revenue”, he added.
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How does the app work
Like most social media platforms, users can post, comment, repost and like. For now, users are mostly posting texts and photos, rather than short-form videos, popular on TikTok and Instagram.
The app’s “Discover Page” has a feature which allows users to search for topics for discussion, it also highlights trending topics and hashtags. Palestine pops up as the most popular topic on UpScrolled’s Discover Page.
Al Jazeera reported that the app features hundreds of posts in support of Palestine and showing the suffering in the Gaza Strip.
The app boasts celebrity users such as Chris Smalls, an American labour activist, and actor Jacob Berger.
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)