What happened
UpScrolled, a six-month-old video social network, claims it grew from 150,000 users in early January to 2.5 million by February 2, according to founder Issam Hijazi at Web Summit Qatar. The surge came as TikTok experienced outages and glitches from January 22 onward, coinciding with its US joint venture deal.
Download data from Sensor Tower shows UpScrolled hit number one in Apple's US social networking category by late January, with approximately 700,000 global downloads (400,000 in the US). The app also saw upticks in the UK, France, Germany, and Italy.
What's behind the numbers
Hijazi, a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian technologist with IBM and Oracle background, positioned UpScrolled as a "transparent, user-empowering alternative" to TikTok, X, Instagram, and Snapchat. The platform's pitch: limited data collection, no third-party sharing, and no shadowbanning.
During his speech, Hijazi criticised big tech for "selling user data for profit" and accused social networks of "suppressing pro-Palestinian content." However, users on Reddit and Medium report the platform hosts significant pornographic content, despite claims it won't use algorithms to amplify such material.
The reality check
The 2.5 million figure comes solely from Hijazi's statements—no independent verification exists beyond download estimates. Baseline user counts vary between reports (50,000 versus 150,000), and competitors like Reddit, Pinterest, and Spill also saw January upticks, suggesting fragmented migration rather than a single winner.
At 2.5 million users, UpScrolled represents 0.15% of TikTok's 1.6 billion global audience. No funding, revenue, or infrastructure cost data has been disclosed.
What this means in practice
For enterprise tech leaders watching social media dynamics, UpScrolled illustrates three patterns: platform fragmentation continues during big tech turbulence, censorship claims remain effective user acquisition hooks, and content moderation at scale remains the hard problem no one solves at launch.
The real test comes when user growth stabilises and the infrastructure bill arrives. History suggests maintaining momentum is harder than catching it.