Photo Credit: UpScrolled
No sooner had TikTok’s US ownership taken hold than users started flocking to other platforms, like former Oracle engineer Issam Hijazi’s UpScrolled.
Last week, TikTok’s U.S. operations changed ownership to a U.S.-based coalition of shareholders in a Trump-led deal completed this month. Already, things are off to a rocky start, leading to a surge in TikTok uninstalls and subsequent downloads of new social apps. Among these is UpScrolled, a social network that promises to remain politically impartial. Currently, the app ranks #1 on Apple’s U.S. app store. So what is UpScrolled, anyway?
UpScrolled is a social platform that combines familiar features from Instagram and the former Twitter, allowing users to share short-form videos, photos, and text posts, as well as discover new content and send direct messages.
Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian developer Issam Hijazi, a former Oracle engineer who also once worked for IBM, launched UpScrolled just last year, with the goal of providing users with a place to “freely express thoughts, share moments, and connect with others.” According to the app’s website, the team behind UpScrolled says they’re “building a platform that belongs to the people who use it—not to hidden algorithms or outside agendas.”
“UpScrolled is the foundation for a digital ecosystem that puts power back into the hands of the people—not the corporations,” said Hijazi. “It’s more than just an alternative to Meta, X, or TikTok—it’s a reimagining of what social media should be: a space where creators, communities, and businesses thrive independently, with real control, transparency, and accountability.”
UpScrolled, which is available for both iOS and Android, saw approximately 41,000 downloads from last Thursday—the day the TikTok deal was completed—and Saturday, according to data from market intelligence firm Appfigures. That accounts for nearly a third of its total installs since the platform launched last year.
The app has continued to see an average of 14,000 daily downloads (a 2,850% increase) since the TikTok deal went live. Faced with that immense surge in downloads, the UpScrolled team says the app is scaling well to keep up with the demand.
UpScrolled isn’t the only app benefiting from disgruntled TikTok users. Skylight Social, an open-source alternative backed by Mark Cuban, has also seen a surge in downloads and just announced topping the 380,000-user threshold. RedNote, “China’s answer to Instagram,” which Digital Music News covered last year, has similarly reported a major increase in downloads and new accounts.
