Catenaa, Friday, January 30, 2025-Australian social media startup UpScrolled saw a sudden surge in users this week after criticism of TikTok over alleged political bias drove attention to alternative platforms.
The influx briefly overwhelmed UpScrolled’s servers, pushing the app to the number two spot in Apple’s App Store social media category, above TikTok.
UpScrolled, launched in July 2025 by former IBM and Oracle consultant Issam Hijazi, offers short-form video, photo, and text posts.
The company markets itself as a censorship-free platform, with chronological feeds and discovery ranked by user engagement rather than paid promotion.
The rapid growth tested infrastructure, prompting the team to expand server capacity and stabilize the service.
Analysts say the surge reflects organic interest driven by word of mouth, rather than major media promotion. AppFigures data shows the platform recorded 41,000 downloads between Thursday and Saturday, roughly one-third of its total installs since launch.
By comparison, the Chinese platform RedNote recorded nearly 292,000 U.S. downloads in its first three days.
The spike follows TikTok’s US operations being spun off under an Oracle-led takeover, amid claims from users and public figures that political content is suppressed. TikTok denied censorship, attributing recent feed delays to a US data center outage.
While UpScrolled emphasizes free expression, the platform maintains rules against harassment, hate speech, sexual exploitation, and threats, with violators subject to suspension or permanent bans.
Observers caution that sustaining the platform’s rapid growth and infrastructure while maintaining content moderation standards remains a challenge for the startup.
