Category World News

UpScrolled, a social media application created by Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian entrepreneur Issam Hijazi, has surged in popularity across several countries, including the United States, as many users looked for an alternative to TikTok, which was formally taken over by US-backed investors and companies last week.

With Larry Ellison, the owner of Oracle, who is a staunch supporter of Israel and a friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, acquiring a stake in TikTok’s US-based entity, social media users have expressed concerns about censorship of pro-Palestine posts on the popular app. TikTok’s global operation will still be run by its Chinese owner, ByteDance.

On Wednesday, TikTok permanently banned Emmy Award-winning journalist and Al Jazeera contributor from Gaza, Bisan Owda, sparking outrage and boycott calls from her supporters. The app has also been accused of content censorship around unprecedented ICE violence in the US.

UpScrolled, which was founded only a year ago, surprisingly climbed to the top spot of US app downloads this week, ranking number one in the “social networking” category of Apple’s App Store free apps by Wednesday. It was also among the top apps downloaded by Apple users in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

The app, meanwhile, is gaining thousands of new downloads as disgruntled TikTok users flock to the platform, pulled by its promise of “transparent tech”. The flood of new users momentarily crashed the platform’s servers over the weekend, UpScrolled reported.

Here’s what we know about the new app that’s stirring up the social media space:

UpScrolled enables the trio of photos, short-form video and text posts, making it feel like a combination of X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Its interface is similar to X, and users can similarly like a post, comment under it or repost.

So far, users on the app appear to be using it more for text and photo posts, rather than for the short-form videos TikTok is popular for.

UpScrolled also has a “Discover Page” similar to Snapchat’s. By far the most popular topic on the Discover Page is Palestine. Hundreds of posts depicting the continuing suffering in the Gaza Strip, or standing in solidarity with Palestinians, are flooding the app.

Some high-profile figures joined the new flock of UpScrolled users, including Chris Smalls, the American labour activist and former Amazon Union organiser who joined others on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in July 2025 to try to break the blockade on the strip.

Jacob Berger, the Jewish-American actor who starred in the popular American crime series Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and who was also on the Freedom Flotilla, is also on the app.

Some users on the app earlier this week complained that video uploads were crashing. UpScrolled, in an update on the app on Thursday, said that was a result of more user downloads, and added that the bugs have been fixed.

UpScrolled was founded in July 2025 by Issam Hijazi, a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian developer who formerly worked with Big Tech companies like Oracle and IBM. It is backed by Tech for Palestine, an advocacy project that funds pro-Palestine tech initiatives.

Hijazi, in an interview with tech news site Rest of World, said he was inspired to leave his Big Tech career behind and build an alternative amid Israel’s obliteration of Gaza, which was declared a genocide by a United Nations Commission of Inquiry. The rate of content censorship across the popular apps, Hijazi said, was a major driver.

“I couldn’t take it any more,” Hijazi is quoted as saying. “I lost family members in Gaza, and I didn’t want to be complicit. So I was like, I’m done with this, I want to feel useful.

“I found this gap in the market, with a lot of people asking why there is no alternative to the Big Tech platforms for their content, which was getting censored. So I thought, why don’t we build our own? I just rolled up my sleeves and built it,” he added.

In a report last year, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese accused IBM and several other Big Tech companies of complicity in what she called “Israel’s genocide”. Social media apps like Instagram, X and TikTok have faced accusations of shadow bans by users posting pro-Palestine content.

UpScrolled claims to moderate only illegal content, such as hard drug sales, but nothing else. Hijazi said the app’s algorithm is not designed to keep people scrolling, unlike TikTok and others.

“It’s not because we don’t know how: it is very easy to design the algorithms to do that,” Hijazi said in the interview. “But I don’t want to do that because I know the effect it can have on people, mentally, especially the younger generation.”

UpScrolled says its feed remains entirely chronological, a feature that has long been removed from other popular apps despite complaints.

Posts on the Discover Page are currently ranked based on engagement, although the team is experimenting with using AI to reorganise the feed, according to user behaviour.

On its website, UpScrolled says it wants to give users a place to “freely express thoughts, share moments, and connect with others”. The app belongs to the people who use it and “not to hidden algorithms or outside agendas,” the company says.

By Tuesday, estimates from the marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower noted that UpScrolled had been downloaded about 400,000 times in the US and 700,000 globally since launching in June 2025.

The app saw a surge in US downloads beginning on January 22 – the same day TikTok signed a deal to create an American-controlled US version of its app.

Sensor Tower estimated that, as of Tuesday, 85 percent of UpScrolled’s downloads in the US had occurred between January 21 and 27.

On Wednesday, UpScrolled was number one in the “social networking” category in Apple’s US App Store, surpassing Meta’s Threads, WhatsApp and TikTok. It was the number six free social app on Google Play for Android users, where TikTok (and TikTok Lite) reign.

The app has also seen a high number of downloads in Canada, the UK and Australia.

“Crazy load on our servers. So exciting!” founder Hijazi posted on the platform on Sunday, after the site reported that soaring numbers of new users crashed its servers.

“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,” Hijazi wrote.

What are the censorship concerns regarding TikTok?

Since the TikTok US deal went live last week, the tag #TikTokCensorship has been trending on the US sites of social platforms like X and Instagram.

Users are accusing TikTok of suppressing videos in support of Palestine. The ban on Bisan Owda has only appeared to support their claims.

Many are also accusing TikTok of quelling content that’s critical of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), amid outrage over the force’s deadly crackdown on immigrants and US citizens alike. This week, ICE officials killed emergency nurse Alex Pretti, less than three weeks after killing another civilian, Renee Good. Others say any anti-Trump criticism is similarly being shadow-banned.

Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a Tuesday post on X that he would investigate TikTok after users complained of being flagged for content about Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted child sex offender alleged to have ties to numerous high-profile figures, including President Trump.

Separately, TikTok users have complained of video glitches on the app since last week’s business deal. Creators say they are seeing zero views on their videos and are experiencing slow uploads.

In a statement on Monday, TikTok said the glitches were caused by a “major infrastructure issue triggered by a power outage” at one of its US data centre partner sites.

Which other apps have surged in popularity in recent years?

Skylight, which launched in April last year, is another app that’s gaining prominence as a TikTok alternative.

The American short-form vertical video app has gained more than 380,000 users and saw an uptick in downloads over the weekend, according to reporting by tech website TechCrunch.

Tom Homan, United States President Donald Trump’s so-called “border czar”, on Thursday indicated a shift in immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota, but doubled down on the administration’s efforts to crack down on undocumented migrants despite mounting protests.

Speaking during a news conference from the Midwestern state, where he was sent after immigration enforcement officers killed two US citizens this month, Homan suggested he would seek to cooperate with local officials — who have opposed federal agents’ conduct towards immigrants and protesters.

Still, he largely placed the blame of recent escalations on the administration of former US President Joe Biden and the policies of local officials, saying that more cooperation would lead to less outrage and potentially a “drawdown” in federal agents.

“I’m staying until the problem’s gone,” Homan told reporters on Thursday, adding the Trump administration had promised and will continue to target individuals that constitute “public safety threats and national security threats”, while adding that those in the country without documentation are “never off the table”.

“We will conduct targeted enforcement operations. Targeted what we’ve done for decades,” Homan said. “When we hit the streets, we know exactly who we’re looking for.”

While Homan portrayed the approach as business as usual, immigration observers have said the administration has increasingly used dragnet strategies in an effort to meet increased detention quotas.

State and local law enforcement officials last week even detailed that many of their off-duty officers had been randomly stopped and asked for their papers. They noted that all those stopped were people of colour.

On the campaign trail, Trump had promised to target only “criminals”, but shortly after taking office, White House spokesperson said it considered anyone in the country without documentation to have committed a crime.

Homan pledged to continue meeting with local and state officials, hailing early “progress” even as differences remain. He highlighted a meeting with the State Attorney General Keith Ellison in which he “clarified for me that county jails may notify ICE of the release dates of criminal public safety risks so ICE can take custody”.

It remained unclear if the announcement represented a policy change. Minnesota has no explicit state laws preventing authorities from cooperating with ICE and the state’s prisons have a long track record of coordinating with immigration officials on individuals convicted of crimes.

County jails typically coordinate based on their own discretion.

Homan said more cooperation with local officials would allow “us to draw down on the number of people we have here”, adding ICE and border patrol staff were drawing up plans for such a drawdown.

Trump sent Homan to replace Greg Bovino, the top border patrol official, who was sent to the state as part of a massive enforcement operation, dubbed Operation Metro Surge, that has sparked widespread protests.

Homand hinted at internal changes, but did not provide further details, just saying “no agency or organisation is perfect”.

“President Trump and I, along with others in the administration, have recognised that certain improvements could and should be made. That’s exactly what I’m doing here,” he said.

“I want to make it clear ICE  and [border patrol] officers are performing their duties in a challenging environment, under tremendous circumstances,” he said. “They’re trying to do it with professionalism. If they don’t, they’ll be dealt with. Like any other federal agency, we have standards of conduct.”

Homan later added that: “I don’t want to see anybody die — not officers, not members of the community and not the targets of our operation”.

Local officials have been pushing for independent state investigations into the killing of Good and Pretti, which have so far been blocked by the administration.

Critics have voiced concerns over Trump administration officials’ immediate claims that both Good and Pretti were threatening lethal force, long before any investigation had been conducted.

The Trump administration announced earlier this week that two border patrol officers involved in Pretti’s killing had been placed on administrative leave.

Wael Tarabishi died after weeks in intensive care while his father, his primary caregiver, was held in ICE detention. Despite multiple requests, ICE denied his release and have barred him from attending his son’s funeral.

The United States and Iran are engaged in increasingly hostile rhetoric as US warships move into the Arabian Sea, despite regional nations seeking a diplomatic solution to prevent a military flare-up.

US President Donald Trump warned this week that “time is running out” for Iran to return to talks to reach a new deal on its nuclear programme.

Trump said the naval forces he was sending to Iran’s neighbourhood were even greater than those that he deployed to the coast of Venezuela before US special forces abducted the South American country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, in a military assault on Caracas on January 3.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi hit back at Trump’s threats, warning that his nation’s military was ready “with their fingers on the trigger”. He added that they would “immediately and powerfully respond” to any new US attack.

The escalation comes seven months after US bombers attacked Iranian nuclear facilities during Tehran’s 12-day war with Israel last year. Iran retaliated by striking Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, which is used by US forces. During its war with Israel, Iran also struck several Israeli cities with missiles.

Earlier this month, Trump told Iranian protesters who were clashing with security forces that “help” was on the way, threatening to bomb Iran. However, he has since walked back his warning, seemingly accepting Tehran’s assurances that arrested protesters would not be executed.

As Iran and the US appear to be headed towards a new military escalation, key demands from both sides appear to be primarily the same as they have been for years.

We unpack what they are:

What the US wants Iran to do

Historically, the US has imposed sanctions on Iran for a range of reasons, from punishment for the hostage crisis in 1979 – when, after the Iranian Revolution, students took over the US embassy with staff inside – to supposed concern for the human rights of Iranians.

But over the past two decades, US pressure against Iran, including through crippling economic sanctions that have devastated the country’s middle class, has largely focused on Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missiles programme.

Nuclear programme

The US and some of its Western allies insist that Iran’s programme is aimed at building nuclear weapons, even though Tehran has insisted that it is only developing a civilian programme to meet energy needs.

Under a nuclear deal that Iran agreed with the US during the Obama administration – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – Tehran capped its uranium enrichment at 3.67 percent and its enriched uranium stockpile at 300kg (660lb). This was enough for Iran to use for nuclear power plants, but far from adequate for weapons. In exchange, the US lifted most sanctions previously imposed on Iran.

At 60 percent enrichment, uranium is considered ready to be developed for weapons. At 90 percent, it is considered fully weapons-grade.

But Trump withdrew the US from this deal in his first term as president, in May 2018, and reimposed sanctions against Tehran. Iran appeared to try to stick to its end of the agreement for a while, along with European powers, Russia and China, who were all co-signatories to the Obama deal. Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, however, kept most of Trump’s sanctions in place, even though he had been Obama’s vice president.

In his second term as president, Trump has further ramped up economic coercion against Iran, which also began rapidly enriching its uranium.

In May 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned that Iran had stockpiled more than 400kg (880lb) of uranium enriched to 60 percent. Though weapons need uranium that’s more than 90 percent enriched, no non-nuclear weapons state is known to keep uranium enriched to levels as high as 60 percent.

The US and Israel cited the IAEA warning as justification for bombing Iran in June.

“There has been a consistent lobby in Washington arguing that Iran achieving nuclear weapon capability is an enormous threat to the US and the wider world, and the US government knows that this fear is widely held in America,” Christopher Featherstone, associate lecturer at the Department of Politics, University of York, told Al Jazeera.

The US now demands that:

• Iran must not build nuclear weapons, and it must abandon even a civilian nuclear programme.
• Iran must not enrich uranium at all – not even to very low levels that would be useless for military purposes.
• Iran must hand over any enriched uranium it already has.

Ballistic missiles

Israeli bombs and missiles killed more than 1,000 Iranians during the June war. But while far fewer – 32 – Israelis died in retaliatory Iranian attacks, Tehran’s ballistic missiles frequently managed to breach Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome, hitting several cities.

Since then, US and Israeli concerns about Iran’s ballistic missiles have grown. Iran’s Emad, Khorramshahr, Ghadr, Sejjil and Soumar ballistic and cruise missiles have ranges between 1,700km and 2,500 km (1,056-1,553 miles).

That puts Israel and all US military bases in the Middle East within the range of these missiles.

The US now demands that:

• Iran must curb the number and range of its ballistic missiles.

Regional influence

The US’s third key demand involves Iran’s influence in its region, stitched together through alliances with governments, religious movements and armed resistance groups.

That so-called “axis of resistance” has suffered body blows over the past two years. In Syria, Bashar al-Assad’s regime, a close partner, fell in December 2024; in Lebanon, Israel decimated the leadership of Hezbollah; while Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen have also been bloodied in wars since 2023.

Still, many of these and other groups that Iran has traditionally supported remain active and alive. Earlier this week, the Iraq-based Kataib Hezbollah, for instance, warned of a “total war” if the US were to attack Iran.

The US demands that:

• Iran must end its support and links with armed resistance groups across the region.

What Iran wants the US to do

Iran, meanwhile, has its own set of demands of the US.

Economic sanctions

US sanctions, first imposed on Iran in 1979, have grown increasingly harsh in recent years, leading to shortages, inflation and economic decline.

Iran’s oil exports fell by 60-80 percent after Trump reimposed sanctions in 2018, robbing the government in Tehran of tens of billions of dollars in annual revenues.

The currency has crashed, hitting a record low of 1,500,000 rials to the dollar this week and leading to soaring inflation and a surge in the prices Iran must pay for everything it imports.

As a result, Iran’s middle class has shrunk dramatically in recent years.

Iran demands that:

• The US must end economic sanctions, including the secondary sanctions that, in effect, coerce other nations from doing business with Tehran.

Nuclear programme

Iran has consistently argued that its nuclear programme is civilian in nature.

But since the joint attacks by Israel and the US last year, and the reimposition of sanctions on Tehran in recent months by the United Nations and European nations, hardliners in the country have been pressuring the government to instead race towards producing a nuclear bomb.

While the Iranian establishment has officially not shifted its position on the subject, it wants:

• Iran to continue to have a nuclear programme, even if with some limits.
• Iran to continue to be able to enrich uranium, even if with some limits.
• A new understanding before allowing IAEA inspectors back into the country. Iran believes that the IAEA’s report on its enriched uranium last year was designed to provide the US and Israel with justification for their attacks.

Ballistic missiles

Iran believes its ballistic missiles offer it much-needed protection against regional threats, especially Israel.

That these missiles have the capacity to batter Israeli cities and reach US bases in the region gives Tehran leverage.

Iran wants:

• To be allowed to keep its ballistic missiles programme.

Regional influence

Iran’s alliances and partnerships in its neighbourhood are embedded in a complex web of ideological affiliations, political commitments – such as to the Palestinian cause – and strategic calculations.

It has lost al-Assad as an ally, and Hezbollah has been weakened. But Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei alluded in December 2024 to Tehran’s belief that:

How close are we to a war?

This all depends on Trump, and how back-channel negotiations that are ongoing between the US and Iran proceed.

US allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have stated that they will not allow their airspace to be used for any attack on Iran. Qatar has been leading efforts to find a diplomatic solution.

Still, the US has been beefing up its military presence off Iran. The USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, is now in the Arabian Sea.

Over the past seven months, Trump has bombed Iran, including deeply buried nuclear facilities like Fordow.

And while Trump has called for talks, Featherstone from the University of York said “it will take an enormous diplomatic effort to see a negotiation of any real meaning.”