A new social media platform, UpScrolled, is drawing rapid attention as an alternative to established apps such as TikTok, Instagram, and X. The app was created by Palestinian technologist Issam Hijazi and has quickly climbed download rankings across several countries.
UpScrolled has become the most downloaded social media app on Apple’s App Store in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. It is also rising in the charts in Pakistan recently.
UpScrolled was developed in the aftermath of Israel’s war on Gaza, a period during which content moderation and visibility around posts related to the conflict tightened across major platforms. Hijazi said this environment pushed him to act.
He said he relied on independent journalists and activists for updates and actively shared information online. Over time, he noticed that while indicators such as casualties and destruction continued to rise, online visibility steadily declined. Hijazi said he felt the information was being suppressed, which motivated him to leave his corporate job and build a new platform.
The app uses a layout similar to Instagram and offers two main feeds: Following and Discover. According to the platform’s website, the Following feed displays posts in chronological order, allowing users to control what they see from accounts they follow.
The Discover feed is ranked by popularity, with time-based decay and a degree of randomness to surface a broader range of content.
UpScrolled says it does not enforce “shadowbans” or hidden content suppression and does not promote any political, commercial, or ideological agenda. The platform states that moderation will be handled by humans, remain transparent, and focus only on content that violates community guidelines or the law.
