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UpScrolled draws TikTok users as censorship fears grow

By: Hannan Adely
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... As TikTok users flee the social network amid concerns over censorship, glitches and surveillance, an independent company that promises a censorship-free experience is soaring in popularity.
..... Under new ownership in the United States, TikTok users said they have been unable to write the name of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in messages, and hat posts about the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis were restricted. Others worry about updates to TikTok's privacy policy allowing the app to collect more data, including their precise location.
..... As the video streaming platform wades through controversy, the UpScrolled app has soared to the top spot in Apple's most downloaded fee apps. The company says it will keep user data private and won't allow money and politics to dictate what people see in their feeds. In just a few days, app users grew from 40,000 to over a million, UpScrolled announced on January 29. [2026]
..... "No shadow-bans. No unfair take-downs. No biased feed manipulation. We built UpScrolled because social media should be open, far, and truly social again," the company says Online.
..... Issam Hijazi, a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian technologist, said he founded the app last year [2025] amid frustration over censorship of Palestinian voices on mainstream platforms. He wanted a place, he said on the company website, to help "anyone feeling unheard."

Who owns TikTok?

..... TikTok users alleged that anti-Trump content has been blocked or restricted after a new majority-American entity took over TikTok's U.S. operations on January 22. [2026] The new investors include Dell Technologies founder Michael Dell and Oracle founder Larry Ellison, whom Bloomberg ranked in 2025 as the world's wealthiest person. Both are allies of President Donald Trump.
..... The deal followed a Biden-era law forcing TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance, to sell U.S. operations or face a ban. the law was driven by bipartisan fear over Chinese access to user data, propaganda and the spread of Pro-Palestinina content. Trump approved the sale through an executive order.
..... On January 26, [2026] California Governor Gavin Newsom announced an investigation "into whether TikTok is violating state law by censoring Trump-critical content."
..... The company blamed the difficulties on a per outage at data center site that caused "cascading systems failure hat we've been working to resolve." Slower load times, the company added were to blame for videos showing zero views. It did not directly address censorship allegations in statements and did not respond to NorthJersey.com 's requests for comment.
..... TikTok told NPR it is investigating why some users have been unable to share the name "Epstein" and said it does not have rules against sharing the name.
..... A week after the acquisition, complaints continued to mount, with the public and celebrates reporting restrictions on immigration-related videos and a spike in pro-Trump content. in the five days after the move to new ownership, TikTok deletions jumped nearly 150% according to Sensor Tower data shared with CNBC.
..... Outrage ensued again when Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda announced on January 28 [2026[ that TikTok had banned her account, where she had 1.4 million followers. Bisan won Emmy and Peabody awards for her live-stream reports documenting life in the Gaza Strip under Israeli siege. A day later, Owda told Al Jazeera she had regained access but that many of her videos were restricted in view.
..... Owda said she was not surprised, noting comments by Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, a friend and ally of Ellison. In a 2025 speech, Netanyahu said social media was a key battleground and called TikTok the "most important" weapon.

'Why stay?'

..... Moath Hamzah, a content creator from Jersey City, [NJ] joined UpScrolled when it launched in June. [2025]
..... "Once they started implementing the most absurd policies and guidelines - actual notifications would pop up saying that our personal private information would be now shared - that's where people just were like, all right, hell, no," Hamzah said about TikTok.
..... "Then they saw, you know, videos like mine pushing the UpScrolled side of things, where it's true free speech, and they jumped ship very quickly," he said.
..... Hamzah has spared controversy with his videos packed with fierce condemnations of Israel and Zionism. Instagram repeatably shut down his accounts, he said. His TikTok videos get an "ineligible for recommendation" label.
..... "It doesn't get pushed out to anyone publicly whatsoever, and it will never get traction,: hes aid. "It's a way of diffusing your content so that even some of your followers are the only ones hat would technically see the video, and even then, they barely see it."
..... UpScrolled featured Hamzah in a recent promotional Online post touting its free speech policies.
..... "The relentless silencing and shadow-banning drove Mo to join UpScrolled," the post said. "why stay if you can't say what you want to say?"
..... Human rights Watch, Access Now and digital rights organizations have reported on "systematic censorship" of pro-Palestinian content across social media, including personal stories, political commentary and documentation of human rights abuses.
..... Hijazi, UpScrooled's founder, said he often turned to classic media for news from Gaza, where 60 of his relatives have been killed. But news became harder to find even as the death and destruction escalated, he said in a Q&A posted on UpScrolled's website.
..... "The truth was essentially being silenced and throttled,' Hijazi said.
..... He left his corporate career to start UpScrolled. The company's footprint is still small compared with those of big-tech companies. TikTok alone has more than 1.5 billion uses.
..... "We built it because people are asking for more transparency, authenticity and trust in the platforms they use every day, Hijazi said.
..... Some newcomers to the app said they were already getting more views and shares than on TikTok, despite its having a much smaller following.

How UpScrolled works

..... The small Australia-based company that runs UpScrolled - funded by Hijazi and individual investors - was overwhelmed as new users flooded the sit in the past week, leading to server crashes and video glitches. The social media app said it has fixed bugs and is expanding its team and infrastructure.
..... The app has a clean look and format similar to other leading social media platforms. Users can share videos, photos and stories: scroll content from people they follow in chronological order; or scroll a "discover: feed to find new content ordered by likes, comments and reshapes.
..... The company promises "no shadow-banning, no hidden throttling, no pay-to-play favoritism" on its website. The platform may run ads, say its FAQ page, but they will be designed in house and won't allow third-party tracking. UPScrolled writers that it will not share data with third parties for marketing, profiling or commercial gain.
..... The app, which is currently available only as a mobile app, is not free of restrictions. The company says Online that it may restrict content if it involves illegal activity, hate speech, bullying, harassment, explicit nudity or unlicensed copyright material.
..... "We don't censor opinions," the company says Online. "But we do enforce a standard that keeps the platform safe, respectful, and responsible for all users."

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