Until recently, UpScrolled was largely unknown, but on Jan. 29 it surged to No. 1 on Apple’s App Store as frustrated U.S. TikTok users rushed to join.
This migration followed the Jan. 22 acquisition of a majority stake in TikTok’s U.S. operations by a group of American investors, including Oracle founder Larry Ellison, a major cheerleader for Israel, just ahead of President Donald Trump’s deadline to separate the app from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
American officials have long argued for such a move over concerns that China could access U.S. user data, yet soon after the deal, users began reporting what they believed to be shadow banning. The complaints intensified amid civil unrest, as users documenting Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in cities like Minneapolis noticed their videos receiving little engagement or failing to upload altogether.
Similar concerns were raised by users posting about Palestine, particularly after Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda’s account was briefly banned and later restored following a public backlash. TikTok has denied shadow banning, attributing recent disruptions to technical issues caused by a polar vortex, though the explanation came only after UpScrolled surpassed one million downloads and many users reported deleting TikTok.
Alarmingly, there are indications that TikTok users employing the word ‘Zionist’ are being shadow banned under suspicion of being antisemitic, unless, the word is used in a positive context.
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