Google Play has delisted UpScrolled, the “censorship-resistant” social media app founded by Issam Hijazi, following its rapid growth to over 2.5 million users and its brief stint as a top-ranked alternative to TikTok.
While the app remains available for existing users, Google has not provided a specific reason for the removal; UpScrolled’s team confirmed they are working with the Play Store for reinstatement while maintaining their commitment to unfiltered content.
This development follows the app’s rapid ascent in popularity, particularly amid concerns over content moderation on competing platforms like TikTok.
I fucking despise israel and their bootlickers.
Reminder that Google is on it’s third attempt to prevent or limit the installation of APKs outside of the Play Store, meaning they are near the point they can effectively control what apps people run.
When this happens I’m flashing graphene os onto my pixel 9
Do it now, use obtainium, droidfy and aurora. Nearly every app works except google wallet.
My only problem stopping me is I use my phone for work too. Microsoft auth, outlook. Mostly just auth. I was looking it up a bit ago and people said it breaks it for work accounts
Not a good idea to mix personal and work devices. I’d recommend getting a cheap budget phone to use for work.
Or ask your work to give you a phone?
My company insists on spyware for my phone, so I insist they give me a phone for work stuff. I leave it off in a drawer at home when I’m not on call.
Its not me but the person I responded to that is using one phone, so their work may not provide such things.
I’d recommend demanding work getting a cheap budget phone.
If they require you have work software they can provide the hardware to run it.
Your phone is your phone.
I use edge for mails and texts because msoft auth stopped prompting and working.
I currently use MS Auth on my Graphene OS phone. Have installed Play Services on that profile, though
The MS auth I need for a work VPN has been set up to call my phone instead, letting me sign in by tapping the # button after answering the phone call from MS.
u should do that anyway, it’s so nice to not feel watched while typing
why wait
And this is why, we sold have https://joinloops.org/ instead
That’s a different type of platform though. Upscrolled = insta, Loops = tiktok.
So, join Pixelfed?
I don’t see why not, if you want, why not both
Not just an alternative to TikTok, but also need one for Google Play, and Android too while we’re at it. (Yes, I know they exist. Just making a point)
brb buying an iPhone
‘no wait not like that’
EU, what about Google monopolies??
Clickbait? The developer is Palestinian/Australian, the app’s audience is global, and it’s not just Palestine-specific. So what’s up with the sensationalised title?
It’s an app developed by a Palestinian which got popular because of recent increasing censorship on TikTok and Instagram against Palestine.
I’m aware. But it’s not just Palestine being censored, it’s currently anything the current U.S administration doesn’t like. So anything anti-trump/Zionist/Israel/ICE falls into this category.
I’m saying the title is misleading because it could be construed as “a social media app/platform specifically made for Palestinians”, which is what most people that haven’t heard of the app before would assume by reading the title alone.
That’s true but most of the hammer is coming down on Palestine content right now. Netanyahu publicly said the goal of the TikTok purchase was to censor for Israel and they’re pulling out all the stops. ICE content isn’t nearly as censored as Palestine content atm
Palestine is just one topic the US is bashing down. The common theme out there us US censorship and control.
The most common theme of censorship worldwide is most certainly Palestine.
Yes its all about you
If anything the app is Australian, Australian made, the developers are in Australia… this is clickbait
No website is certainly a choice
De-listed where? It’s listed still for me.
I’m guessing it was a regional de-listment and it just wasn’t specified.
Being said, this page was enough to make me install the app, still unsure if I wanna use it or not but, I don’t wanna risk losing the ability to install the app either.
It’s back. It was gone for just a few hours it seems
The more I work for tech companies the more I genuinely end up believing that stuff like this being removed is in fact just incompetence at least 50% of the time
A lot of companies seem to automatically delist things that get mass reported, which makes them subject to interference by armies of paid or unpaid trolls. Hopefully the issue gets corrected but this seems to happen more and more frequently.
I work in tech too, and I’m convinced almost none of these abusive tactics are the result of incompetence.
The abuse is the point. They need to constantly remind people who is in charge.
Hanlon’s razor
This is what Google does. They censor content and keep it gone as long as there isn’t a sufficient retaliation.
It’s what they did to remove AdNauseam from their addon repository. The only difference is nobody fought back so it remains gone to this day without justifiable reason.
The devs confirmed it was delisted. Not sure what its current status is. Seeing mixed messages online so it might be regional delisting or it might have been restored.
IIRC the app is Australian but founder is Palestinian-Australian
It’s back I am downloading it now. Good guy google with the streisand effect.
E: Oh it’s just isreal hating which is fun and all but doesn’t get anyone anywhere but a list lol
Google is a fucking monopoly. (Please do not use any Google product. If you care about freedom, there are tons of alternatives for most products.)
Start with:
switch to DuckDuckGo search or Brave Search
switch to Firefox on your phone and use uBlock Origin (not the weak lite version, but the full Origin version)
Good job you’ve done 80% of the work. You can continue to de-Google
btw
Nice
Don’t use brave it’s still chromium/ pays Google
And yet it has some of the best fingerprint randomization techniques. Down to some insane details. And before you say, just use the Tor browser for that… I do. But that is a different type of resistance, uniformity. Which is great for some use cases, but randomization also works even better in other situations… Eg, personalized browsers with a few extra extensions and customizations.
I use Firefox bro 🦊
Waterfox ftw.
Honestly Firefox is fine for now until they add their AI shit
They added AI kill-switch (will come in v148)
Right. I saw that. That’s good to bad it’s opt-out rather than opt in. Applaud Firefox for that though, rather than everyone else shoving it down your throat the second you sign in.
the only thing I can’t replace yet is Maps. reviews, photos, in-trip driving instructions, it’s just so full-featured I can’t imagine myself without it
I haven’t used Google Maps for four months. OpenStreetMap has been enough for me. I don’t need reviews, photos, or driving instructions. Also, the constant use of navigation apps is atrophying our mental mapping skills.
I switched to Vivaldi and Ecosia, barely notice a difference.
Ecosia is OK, but if you use Vivaldi (I’m guessing it’s Chromium) you will give power to Google. If we want to fight Google, there are three main areas.
1 - The most important is search (fortunately they suck and it’s easy to change).
2 - The second most important is Chromium (there is only one alternative, Firefox - I don’t count Safari because it’s for Apple devices). Firefox has Manifest V2; if we lose this, we lose great power.
3 - The third most important is YouTube. I think this is the hardest one because maintaining a video-sharing platform is very expensive, and it’s not something that can live just with donations.
Vivaldi also kept Manifest V2, so old extensions do keep working there. They also have a mastodon server, and email/calendar/feeds, so they offer more out of the box than Firefox. Lots of projects built on other open source projects like Chromium and KDE do offer legitimate alternatives.
I’m not talking about “now”; I’m talking about the future. Enshittification is inevitable in proprietary software.
Free-software licenses provide risk mitigation against different legal threats or behaviors that are seen as potentially harmful by developers:
Frequently used protective and permissive licenses AGPLv3 GPLv3 GPLv2 LGPLv3 LGPLv2.1 MPLv2 Apache-2.0 BSD SaaS/cloud Yes No No No No No No No Tivoization Yes Yes No Yes No No No No Patent trolling Yes Yes No Yes No Yes Yes No Proprietization Yes Yes Yes Partial Partial Partial No No Granularity Project Project Project Library Library File - - Trademark grant ? ? ? ? ? No No No While I agree with what you’re saying, this is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Funding sources and incentives also matter, GPL projects don’t enshittify, but it can be harder to build a community with those developers who would like a more permissive license, while most but maybe not all Apache projects can remain faithful to their missions and not enshittify. More competition means I as a user can choose from features and other things too, and not just the license.
I just downloaded it from my playstore
I don’t have any accounts on the fash friendly state-funded/corpo social platforms, but has anyone seen if the developer has made a statement online since the app got relisted?
Either way, I wouldn’t use this app at this point. Not because of anything the developer has done, rather because Google can man-in-the-middle any version of the app he submits. Might sound a little far fetched, but given the continous fealty to this administration, and Google’s deep relationships with Gov entities going back decades…
Well… why trust them to not be supplying whatever alphabet agency with user data?
Ditch Google Play !
You can use Obtainium and F-Droid to install apps as directly from the Developer as possible.
You can use Aurora Store to get things from the App Store anonymously.
If you want, you can install /e/os (any phone) or GrapheneOS (Pixels only) to de-google your Android as much as possible !
F-Droid (main repo + izzy’s repo) is enough for 70-80% of app needs and their quality is very good (in play store there is millions app but most off them is scam and trash)
I tend to prefer getting the apps directly from the code repositories via Obtainium, but I use F-Droid to search for apps !
No politic here!
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Make sure everyone checks the modlog to see how the mods are serving Israel’s interests.
It’s gotten so bad we can’t even say how bad it is.
By most of the world you probably mean what is called the West that’s actually only 14% of the world.
The West’s power and influence stretches far beyond its borders and populations.
Just like Israel.
Can you give an example? It seems their power and influence were not enough against Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Russia. They even lose their grasp on Africa. China and India don’t look like they care a tiny bit of that mythical power. So we have plenty of examples where their power does not stretch far enough, can you give an example that shows how powerful and influential the West is?
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