Social network UpScrolled, which gained prominence after TikTok’s ownership change in the U.S. in January, has zoomed past 2.5 million users, the company’s founder Issam Hijazi said during Web Summit Qatar.
“We launched about six months ago, and we grew to about 150,000 up until early January. And as of the last few days, we reached over one million users globally. Now, starting today, we surpassed two-and-a-half million users globally,” Hijazi said.
UpScrolled is a blend of Instagram and X, and claims to be inclusive of all voices. The company says that it allows for all kinds of content and doesn’t shadowban or censor people.
During his speech, Hijazi called out big tech companies for being unethical and selling user data for profit, and accused social networks of suppressing pro-Palestinian content and choosing to censor users selectively.
“They don’t care about selling your data to someone else if that means profit for them. And they don’t care about your mental health, as in they will design something just to keep you addicted to using that platform as long as it’s profitable for them,” he said.
Users on other platforms have complained about UpScrolled hosting a lot of porn and nudity. Hijazi noted that while the company won’t rely on amplification algorithms to boost or suppress certain views, it would have community guidelines in place to comply with laws in different regions. The company is gathering a team of experts to solidify its community guidelines and is also taking user feedback into account, he added.
The company hasn’t announced any funding publicly, but Hijazi said that the social network has been getting investor interest.
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In January, TikTok switched to a new ownership structure in the U.S. with a consortium consisting of investors like Silver Lake and Oracle taking a majority share of the company while ByteDance retained 20% ownership. That change led to many users exploring other social networks. Apart from UpScrolled, AT Protocol-based Skylight also gained attention, crossing 380,000 users in the days following the finalization of the TikTok deal.
While these social networks might have benefited from a short-term boost following organizational changes at TikTok, they will have to build features and a community to retain users. They will also have to form moderation policies and take content decisions that might not be popular with their user base, as Bluesky has discovered over the last few years.
