The platform climb came amid criticism that TikTok was suppressing political content. As of Monday, UpScrolled reached number two in the social media category on the Apple App Store, above TikTok at number three.
While the UpScrolled team welcomed the influx of new interest, it also strained the platform’s infrastructure.
“Crazy load on our servers. so exciting! haven’t slept in two days folks lol,” UpScrolled founder Issam Hijazi posted on Sunday. “Sorry about the errors and glitches. We are increasing our capacity to handle the load. We expect things to become more stable in the next 12-24 hours.”
What is UpScrolled?Launched in June by Issam Hijazi, a former IBM employee who also worked as a consultant at Oracle, UpScrolled supports short-form video, photos, and text posts.
The company says it does not censor content or use shadowbans, does not prioritize political or commercial agendas, and does not boost posts through paid promotion, relying instead on user engagement for visibility.
Posts from followed accounts appear in chronological order, while the discovery feed ranks content by engagement, according to the company. UpScrolled says it does not use paid promotion and that neither political nor commercial interests influence visibility. Whether the platform can sustain its rapid growth or maintain that approach remains unclear.
“UpScrolled’s increased adoption appears to be more organic, driven largely by word of mouth on TikTok and X before any major media coverage,” Head of Insights and Media Resources at AppFigures, Randy Nelson, told Decrypt.
Nelson said UpScrolled recorded about 41,000 downloads between Thursday and Saturday, roughly one-third of its 140,000 lifetime installs. Since Thursday, UpScrolled has averaged about 14,000 daily downloads, about 29 times higher than its pre-surge average of roughly 460 installs per day, according to AppFigures.
“That said, it’s still too early to project even the app’s near-term performance, but we'll be tracking it in order to provide that data as soon as possible,” Nelson added.
RedNote recorded about 292,000 U.S. downloads in its first three days, compared with roughly 41,000 for UpScrolled, which is about 14% of RedNote’s three-day total, he added.
“Compared with the three days before it took off, RedNote’s average installs during its first three days were about 3,368%, or roughly 35 times higher,” Nelson said.
The latest migrations follow turbulent years for TikTok in the U.S.
TikTok has denied censorship, saying on X that a power outage at a U.S. data center caused the recent feed delays and publishing issues.
While UpScrolled claims it does not censor or shadowban, the company also added that it will not tolerate abuse.
UpScrolled has yet to respond to Decrypt's requests for comment.
