I have spent nearly a decade working in the field of online anti-Semitism and extremism. This, I thought, was long enough to have seen everything the digital world of ‘free expression’ could offer. But I was wrong. I’ve just downloaded UpScrolled.
Launched last summer by Issam Hijazi, an Australian-Palestinian, UpScrolled bills itself as a sanctuary for unfiltered voices. No shadowbans, no algorithmic sleight of hand, just pure, equitable discourse. ‘Built for impact. Driven by purpose. Powered by you!’ its homepage trumpets, echoing the libertarian siren song that has lured millions away from the likes of TikTok and X. But UpScrolled is not a beacon of liberty. It is often a place of venom, where the worst impulses of humanity fester. It has become a megaphone for anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, white supremacy, Islamist extremism, glorification of terrorism, and conspiracy lunacy.
Hijazi’s creation surged to prominence amid TikTok’s ownership shake-up in January. By early this month, UpScrolled had over 2.5 million users. It remains near the top of the Apple download lists in the US and UK. Hijazi pitches the platform as a response to the ‘genocide’ in Gaza, a rebuke to platforms he accuses of suppressing pro-Palestinian narratives.
The very first image I was shown after completing my registration – before following a single user, before registering any engagement at all – set the tone. It depicted a boy standing at a crossroads. To the right lay TikTok, rendered as a dark nightmare, captioned ‘Don’t fuck Israel.’ To the left, the sunny hills of UpScrolled, cheerfully marked ‘Fuck Israel.’ What a welcome. It was far from the worst thing I would see.
From there, the pattern became unmistakable. In every category – be it politics, music, tech, food, science, nature – the same obsessions surfaced. The most extreme forms of anti-Semitism: Holocaust denial and justification; conspiracies blaming Jews for everything from wars and financial crises to 9/11; fantasies of Jewish control over world leaders; open praise for Hitler and for terrorism. Jews were depicted as baby-killers, as demonic forces, as Satan himself.
One image showed a Charedi Jew in the infamous ‘happy merchant’ pose, grotesquely reimagined as a lamp. The caption read: ‘80 years ago six million Jewish pookies were turned into soap and lampshades.’ This is not edgy provocation or tasteless humour. It is explicit, unfiltered hatred.
Jews appear to be the primary target of platform users, but they are not the only one. The platform is home to vehemently anti-western material and enthusiastic support for Iran, Russia, Hamas and China. Liberal democracy is treated with open contempt, and the West as a civilisational project is something to be mocked, blamed and dismantled.
The risks are profound, especially for the young. In an era when algorithms already radicalise minds, UpScrolled could become a gateway to extremism. Adolescents, navigating identity and ideology, could absorb neo-Nazi talking points as gospel, or Islamist calls to jihad as empowerment. Online content already helps foster real-world violence. We have seen it with 8chan and the Christchurch massacre; in Gab and the Pittsburgh Synagogue Attack. For free societies, these platforms pose an existential paradox: how do we safeguard liberty without abetting its destroyers? The Online Safety Act, enforced by Ofcom, mandates social media firms to reduce illegal content and protect minors through age verification and content filters. I believe Ofcom has legal grounds to demand that UpScrolled overhauls its Wild West ethos or risk hefty fines or, better yet, exclusion.
Yet here is the rub: even if UpScrolled geoblocks British users to dodge regulation, as some platforms have, VPNs can render domestic legislation meaningless. A teenager in Tottenham could masquerade as an Aussie in seconds, diving headfirst into the hate.
I do not want to see puritanical censorship. The sentiment so often attributed to Voltaire – that one should defend the right to speak even when one despises what is being said – captures the liberal instinct well enough. But limits exist.
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