As Meta, TikTok, Instagram and X continue to dominate online social spaces, a new platform called UpScrolled has entered the scene.

It is not built around dances or memes, but instead positions itself as a space promising fewer shadowbans and greater freedom of political expression, particularly for pro-Palestinian voices.

So, what is it exactly, and why are users switching?

UpScrolled was launched in July 2025 by Palestinian-Australian app developer Issam Hijazi.

At first glance, the platform feels familiar. It features an up and down scrolling video feed reminiscent of TikTok, alongside profile pages, comments and direct messaging features similar to Instagram.

The similarities, however, appear to end there. Unlike major platforms where opaque algorithms determine which content is amplified and which is buried, UpScrolled claims to operate differently.

The platform describes itself as a space where “every voice gets equal power”, promising to operate without “shadowbans, algorithmic games, or pay-to-play favouritism”, according to its website.

In an interview with Rest of World, Hijazi said the motivation behind the launch was the overwhelmingly pro-Israel content he saw being promoted on more established platforms following 7 October 2023.

Working for what he described as big tech companies at the time, Hijazi expressed deep frustration.

“I could not take it anymore. I lost family members in Gaza, and I did not want to be complicit. So I was like, I am done with this, I want to feel useful,” he said.

The Tech for Palestine incubator, an advocacy project that funds technology initiatives supporting the Palestinian cause, has publicly backed the platform.

Moderation without the black box
Hijazi said UpScrolled’s content moderation process differs from other social media platforms in that it does not selectively censor particular groups or viewpoints.

Content deemed illegal, such as the sale of narcotics or prostitution, is removed, but when it comes to free speech, the approach is rooted in transparency, ethics and equal treatment.

According to 7amleh, the Arab Centre for the Advancement of Social Media, major tech platforms such as Meta have consistently engaged in a “systemic and disproportionate censorship of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian content”. This includes the removal of posts, restrictions on account visibility and, in some cases, permanent bans.

Throughout the war on Gaza, numerous Palestinian organisations, activists, journalists, media outlets and content creators were targeted over their pro-Palestine views.

Bisan Owda, an award-winning Gaza-based journalist with more than 1.4 million followers on TikTok, is among the most prominent recent examples, whose account was reportedly permanently banned earlier this week — but has now been reinstated after a global outcry.

Critics argue that censorship concerns extend beyond the Palestinian issue, affecting other sensitive topics, including criticism of US government policies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

High profile commentators critical of the Trump administration have reported what they describe as a systematic effort to remove or suppress their videos and content.

Users flock to UpScrolled
Users frustrated with big tech’s control over online narratives have increasingly turned to the new platform.

UpScrolled has reached number one in the social networking category of Apple’s App Store in both the US and the UK.

As of Tuesday, the app had been downloaded around 400,000 times in the US and 700,000 times globally since its launch. An estimated 85 percent of those downloads occurred after January 21 alone, according to data from marketing intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

The Palestinian-founded app has also seen a surge in downloads following the recent acquisition of TikTok by American billionaire Larry Ellison, a co-founder of Oracle.

Ellison is a prominent supporter of Israel and maintains close ties with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has also financially backed the Israeli military, including a $16.6 million donation made during a 2017 gala organised by the Friends of the Israeli Forces.

The timing of UpScrolled’s rise has therefore not gone unnoticed. The platform appears to have capitalised on widespread frustration and anger over biased content moderation, offering an alternative built around transparency and user control.

The app remains a work in progress, with users having reported crashes and server overloads amid its rapid growth over the past week.

Still, UpScrolled poses a challenge to dominant platforms and highlights a growing appetite for social media spaces that give users greater control over what they see and share.

Republished from the Middle East News Agency (MENA) and The New Arab.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A new study suggests that the news media’s tanking levels of public trust may be made worse merely by association with social media.

The study, released this month by the Reuters Institute at Oxford University, has exposed gaps between trust in news via conventional delivery and the same thing consumed via social media.

It doesn’t matter whether people use social media or not: Levels of trust is lower if they simply associate news with the platforms.

The gap varies between platforms and between countries but the overall finding is that levels of trust in news on social media, search engines, and messaging apps is consistently lower than audience trust in information in the news media more generally.

And our media is becoming more and more associated with social media.

Many of the country’s main news outlets have done deals with Google to appear on its Google News platform. Click on the app and you’ll see stories from Stuff, Newshub, New Zealand Herald and NewstalkZB, Radio New Zealand, Television New Zealand, Newsroom, and the Otago Daily Times.

NZME has brokered a deal with Facebook for the use of content, and other publishers are using the Commerce Commission in the hope of leveling the negotiating playing field.

Split between north and south
The Reuters study (part of the institute’s on-going research into trust in the media) was a split between north and south. The four countries surveyed were the United Kingdom, the United States, India, and Brazil. Two thousand people were surveyed in each country and covered seven platforms: Facebook, Google, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, WhatsApp, and YouTube.

New Zealand use of social media more closely follows that of the United States and the United Kingdom than India and Brazil so the data relating to those two nations are quoted here. The full results can be found here.

Google showed the smallest gap between platform and general trust in news. It was only one percentage point behind in Britain where 53 percent express general trust in news. In the US, where the general trust level sits at 49 percent, Google was actually four percentage points ahead.

The same could not be said for other platforms.

To ease the calculation, we’ll say roughly 50 percent of respondents in both countries express trust in news in general. Contrast that with news on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, which score in the mid to high twenties.

TikTok news is trusted by only 20 percent on those surveyed, the same number as WhatsApp rates in the United States (the UK is higher on 29 percent).

Only YouTube emerged from the twenties, with its news content being rated by 33 percent in Britain and 40 percent in the United States.

Complex reasons
The reasons for these gaps in perception of news on social media are complex. This is due in part to the fact that social media serves many different purposes for many different users.

News is only a small part of the interchange that occurs. The study shows that no more than a third use Google or Facebook for daily access to news, with other platforms below 20 percent, and on TikTok only 11 percent.

Large portions of the public, in fact, do not use social media platforms at all (although this does not stop them having opinions about them in the survey). Usage varies between Britain and America but a quarter to a third never use Facebook, Google or YouTube and half to three quarters do not use the remaining platforms.

Previous Reuters research has shown levels of trust in news are higher in those who access it on a regular basis. Distrust is highest among those who have least contact with news and with social platforms. This is confirmed by the latest survey.

News organisations may take some comfort from the findings that young people are more trusting of news on social platforms than older people. The gap is huge in some cases.

An average 14 percent of Americans and Britons over 55 trust news on Facebook. That rises to 40 percent among those under 35. The gap for Google is similar and even greater on other platforms.

News aside, however, people have generally positive views of platforms. More than two-thirds give Google a tick and almost as many give the thumbs-up to YouTube. Both are seen as the best platforms on which learn new things.

Facebook doesn’t fare so well
Facebook does not fare quite so well but at 40-45 percent positive rating, while fewer than a third feel positively about Twitter and TikTok.

In spite of these warm fuzzies, however, the surveys reveal “big problems”, particularly with Facebook.

Almost two-thirds of respondents blame Facebook for propagating false or misleading information and it is also seen as the worst culprit in on-platform harassment, irresponsible use of personal data, prioritising political views, and censoring content.

Although opinions expressed by non-users has complicated the Reuters study, both users and no-users express similar views when it comes to these problems. For example, the proportion of Facebook users that say false or misleading information is a problem on the platform (63 percent) is virtually the same as those who say it is in the overall sample.

The study, which includes an even wider range of variables than are included here, attempts to correlate platform usage and ideas about journalism. After all, it is on such platforms — and from the mouths of some politicians — that users encounter discussions about journalism and criticism of journalists.

The survey asked specific questions about journalists. Half the respondents thought journalists try to manipulate the public to serve the agendas of powerful politicians and care more about getting attention than reporting the facts.

Forty percent thought journalists were careless in what they reported, and a slightly higher proportion thought they were only in it for the money.

Criticism of journalism
The researchers then attempted to identify where and how criticism of journalism is encountered. Twitter users are most likely to encounter it. In the United States almost half said they often see criticism of media there and the UK is not far behind.

More than 40 percent of Facebook and Google users in America encounter it and a third of British users of those two platforms say they see it there. Other (newer) platforms have even higher incidences.

So that is where the criticism of journalists is propagated, but who is doing the criticising? Almost half those surveyed in the United States pointed the finger at politicians and political parties, although a similar number also say the hear it from “ordinary people”.

The figures are slightly lower in the UK but around a third identify political or government sources.

The survey also asked whether other public figures were responsible for criticism of journalists. Celebrities and activists figure in around a third of responses but so, too, do journalists themselves.

The surveys also give some pointers about the relative importance of “clicks” or how much attention our newsrooms should give to real-time analytics. The answer is  . . . some.

Respondents were asked to pick the factors that were important in deciding whether they could trust information on online platforms. In both countries fewer than 40 percent said the number of likes or shares were important or very important.

Media source familiarity
Around half paid attention to comments on items but far more important was whether they had heard of the media source. Two thirds were influenced by the tone or language used in headlines and almost 60 percent were influenced by accompanying images.

That finding correlates with another in which respondents were asked who should be responsible for helping to differentiate between trustworthy and untrustworthy content on the internet.

More than two-thirds put that responsibility on media organisations, higher than on tech companies, and significantly higher than on government (although Britons were more inclined toward regulation than their American cousins).

However, if the research proved one thing, it was that the media/social media environment is deeply nuanced and manifests the complexities of human behaviour. The conclusions drawn by the researchers say as much. They leave a couple of important take-aways.

“As a trade-off for expanding reach and scale, newsrooms have often ceded considerable control to these outside companies in terms of how their content is distributed and how often and in what form their work appears on these services.

“Such relationships have been further strained as publishers become increasingly dependent on platforms to reach segments of the public least interested in consuming news through legacy modes, even as platforms themselves have pivoted to serving up other kinds of experiences farther removed from news, recognising that many of their most active users have less interest in such content, especially where politically contentious issues are involved.”

They say the gap they have identified is likely a reflection of this mismatch in audience perceptions about what platforms are for, the kinds of information they get when using the services, and how people think more generally about news media.

“It is possible that the main challenge for news organisations when it comes to building and sustaining audience trust is less about the specific problem of how their journalism is perceived when audiences encounter it online, and more about the broader problem of being seen at all.”

My conclusion
Years ago, we heard the term “News You Can Use” as a response to the challenge of declining newspaper circulation. That was a catchy way of saying “We must be relevant”. The Reuters study is further proof that journalism’s real challenge lies in producing content that ordinary people need to live their daily lives. If that means collating and publishing daily lists of what every supermarket chain is charging for milk, bread, cabbages and potatoes then so be it.

Dr Gavin Ellis holds a PhD in political studies. He is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications — covering both editorial and management roles — that spans more than half a century. Dr Ellis publishes a website called Knightly Views where this commentary was first published and it is republished by Asia Pacific Report with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Indonesian Independent Journalist Alliance (AJI) has condemned the hacking and disinformation attacks against the group’s general chairperson Sasmito Madrim as a serious threat to media freedom.

In a written release, the AJI stated that the incident was a “serious threat to press freedom and the freedom of expression”.

“This practice is a form of attack against activists and the AJI as an organisation which has struggled for freedom of expression and press freedom,” the group stated.

“The hacking and disinformation attack against AJI chairperson Sasmito Madrim is an attempt to terrorise activists who struggle for freedom of expression and democracy”, the group said.

The AJI stated that the hacking attack began on February 23 and targeted Madrim’s personal WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook accounts as well as his personal mobile phone number.

All of the posted content on his Instagram account was deleted then the hacker uploaded Madrim’s private mobile number.

Madrim’s mobile number was subsequently unable to receive phone calls or SMS messages.

Pornographic picture hack
On his Facebook account, Madrim’s profile photograph was replaced with a pornographic picture.

On February 24, the AJI monitored a disinformation attack which included Madrim’s name and photograph on social media.

The narrative being disseminated was that Madrim supported the government’s 2020 banning of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), supports the government’s construction of the Bener Dam in Purworejo regency and has asked the police to arrest Haris Azhar and Fatia Maulidiyanti, two activists who were criminalised by Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan.

The AJI Indonesia asserts that these messages are false and such views have never been expressed by Madrim.

“These three [pieces of] disinformation are clearly an attempt to play AJI Indonesia off against other civil society organisations, including to pit AJI against the residents of Wadas [Village] which is currently fighting against the exploitation of natural restores in its village,” wrote AJI.

AJI Indonesia is asking the public not to believe the narrative of disinformation spreading on social media and to support them in fighting for press freedom, the right to freedom of expression, association, opinion and the right to information.

Translated from the Kompas.com report by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Kecam Peretasan Terhadap Ketumnya, AJI: Ancaman Serius Bagi Kebebasan Pers“.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Asia Pacific Report newsdesk

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) union is reconsidering its involvement in the Australian Press Council and has appealed to members to give feedback on this issue.

Vice-president media Karen Percy has appealed to delegates on a YouTube video to take part in this consultation.

“Members have raised concerns about the lack of financial transparency at the Press Council and rulings that are increasingly out of step with community expectations,” she said.

If the MEAA leaves, it needs to give four years notice “to end our contributions”, which last year were more than A$100,000.

“That four years gives us time to look at alternative regulatory options, and that’s in line with the MEAA submission to the Senate Inquiry into media diversity which proposes a single entity for self-regulation,” said Percy.

Meanwhile, the MEAA says in a recent statement on its website that Facebook’s recent “ham-fisted handling of its news sharing ban” in Australia – which initially blocked crucial community information and health and government information sites – had revealed the real dangers of an organisation that “abuses its dominant position” and “thumbs its nose at rules and regulations”.

Last month’s decision by Facebook to unilaterally ban news on hundreds of Australian pages was “the arrogant act of a company with too much power that thinks it is beyond the reach of any government”, the statement said.

Facebook was acting in retaliation to the proposed News Media Bargaining Code, which would force it and Google to compensate media outlets for content that until now has been published on their platforms for free.

While Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code was not a silver bullet to fix the problems within the news media, it was an important step to address the “blatant imbalance between the digital giants” and those who produced public interest news content.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The federal government must act urgently to support small Australian news outlets that could be shut out of commercial deals with Facebook and Google under its News Media Bargaining Code, says the union for Australia’s journalists.

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) said in a statement that it welcomed Facebook’s decision to no longer block news links in Australia following negotiations with the federal government over the code, but added that it was concerned about what this will mean for small media organisations and freelancers.

MEAA media federal president Marcus Strom said that while the way had now been cleared for the big media companies to strike commercial deals with Facebook and Google, it was unclear to what extent small outlets would benefit.

“For small publishers that have become reliant on Facebook to distribute their news, it will be a huge relief that the news tap has been turned back on,” Strom said.

“But they will remain at the mercy of Facebook and Google, which are both seeking to avoid mandatory regulation and will instead choose which media companies they come to agreements with.

“This will particularly affect small publishers if the Treasurer deems that Google and Facebook have done enough not to be named as respondents to the News Media Mandatory Code.

“For small publishers who fail to make side deals with the tech giants, they could be locked out, further entrenching the narrow ownership base of the Australian media market.

A ‘threat to misbehaving companies’
“We now face the strange possibility that the News Media Mandatory Code could be passed by Parliament and it applies to precisely no one. It will just sit in the Treasurer’s drawer as a threat to misbehaving digital companies, which could later counter threat to turn the tap back off.

“It shouldn’t be up to Facebook and Google to cherry pick and groom publishers it deems acceptable for side deals. Any code should be mandatory, uniform, predictable, and fair; not at the whim of technology executives”

Strom said there also remained no guarantees that any money raised for news media from the tech companies would be spent on journalism.

“Where is the commitment to stable funding to the public broadcasters? Where are the tax incentives to support public interest journalism? And where is the ongoing commitment to support rural, suburban and regional media, along with freelancers?’ he asked.

“While we support this Bill, MEAA has always maintained that the News Bargaining Code alone has never been a ‘silver bullet’ for small, regional, community and independent outlets.

“Throughout the long process of developing the code, going back to the original digital platforms inquiry by the ACCC, MEAA has called for a holistic suite of reforms to nurture a vibrant and diverse media ecosystem.

“Beyond meaningfully addressing the need to ensure digital platforms pay for the news content they carry, there are a range of discrete measures that can be adopted in Australia to maintain the viability of media company operations and, critically, encourage new entrants.

Reforms called for
Among the reforms that were called for by the MEAA were:

• extending the operation of the Public Interest News Gathering programme to become an annual round of funding;
• the adoption by the federal government of critical measures which have been used overseas, such as directly funding local news, offering taxation rebates and incentives;
• part-funding editorial positions;
• and resetting government assistance to ensure funding is available for new media organisations, as well as traditional media companies.

Facebook reverses Australia news ban after government makes media code amendmentshttps://t.co/NXfdCaH8Ch

— Tactical Tech (@Info_Activism) February 23, 2021

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has condemned Facebook for carrying out its threat to block the sharing of its journalistic news content in Australia in retaliation to the federal government’s plan to make platforms pay media outlets.

The ban impacts on the reliability and pluralism of the information available on this social media platform, said the Paris-based global media watchdog.

“No posts yet” is the message that the Facebook pages of the Australian media have been showing since February 17, says RSF in a statement.

This blackout is deliberate. Facebook announced on February 17 that it would “restrict publishers and people in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content.”

The decision was taken in reaction to the Australian government’s proposed News Media Bargaining Code, under which platforms such as Facebook and Google would have to pay Australian media outlets for the content they display.

Facebook’s response, called the “nuclear option” by The Australian daily newspaper, is radical.

Australian media can no longer share or post content on their Facebook pages, while users in Australia can no longer see or share links to news on the platform, whether Australian or international news.

Facebook ‘abusing dominant position’
“Facebook is abusing its dominant position to defend its economic interests at the expense of online news reliability and pluralism,” said Iris de Villars, the head of RSF’s Tech Desk.

“Regardless of the proposed law being discussed, these restrictions affect the ability of Australian citizens to access reliable and independent information on this platform.

“We urge Facebook to reverse this decision, which totally contradicts its pledges to combat disinformation.”

To implement these restrictions, Facebook has been using machine-learning tools to identify news content publishers but this has had the collateral effect of blocking other kinds of content, including the pages of several NGOs such as RSF, public health bodies, governmental institutions and even entities that handle emergencies.

Facebook has not as yet responded to RSF’s questions.

Asia Pacific Report and Pacific Media Watch collaborate with Reporters Without Borders.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz