Social networks UpScrolledwhich rose to prominence after TikTok’s change of ownership in the US in January, has surpassed 2.5 million users, company founder Issam Hijazi said during the Web Summit Qatar.

“We launched about six months ago, and we grew to about 150,000 until early January. And in the last few days, we have reached more than one million users worldwide. Now, as of today, we have exceeded two and a half million users worldwide,” said Hijazi.

UpScrolled is a combination of Instagram and X, and claims to include all voices. The company says it allows for all types of content and doesn’t shadowban or censor people.

During his speech, Hijazi called out major technology companies for being dishonest and selling user data for profit, and accused social networks of suppressing pro-Palestinian content and selectively targeting users.

“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, because they will design something to keep you addicted to using that platform as long as it is profitable for them,” he said.

Users on other platforms THERE complained about UpScrolled hosting a lot of pornography and nudity. Hijazi noted that although the company does not rely on amplification algorithms to boost or suppress certain views, it does have community guidelines to comply with laws in different regions. The company has assembled a team of experts to strengthen community guidelines and also takes into account user feedback, he added.

The company has not announced any funding publicly, but Hijazi said the social network has attracted interest from investors.

In January, TikTok moved to a new ownership structure in the US with a consortium made up of investors such as Silver Lake and Oracle took a majority stake in the company while ByteDance retains 20% ownership. That change led to more users exploring other social networks. Besides UpScrolled, AT Protocol-based Skylight is also getting attention, crossing 380,000 users in the days after the end of the deal with TikTok.

Although these social networks may have benefited from a short-term development after the organizational changes of TikTok, they must build features and a community to maintain users. They also have to create moderation policies and make decisions on content that may not be popular with their user base, like Bluesky does. discovered in the end several years.