The future of UpScrolled is about to change

The decision that changed UpScrolled's future didn't start in a boardroom. It started with a question that refused to go away. A question about privacy, trust and who social media platforms should really be built for. The answer would close one chapter, open another and redefine where UpScrolled believes the future of social media should be built.

When UpScrolled launched, the goal wasn't to create another social media platform competing for attention. The goal was to build something people felt they were missing. A place where users had more control over their experience, and where creators could focus on building communities instead of constantly trying to work out what an algorithm wanted from them. A platform that was more transparent about how it worked and more willing to listen to the people using it. That idea attracted people from all over the world. What started as a small community grew into a global platform serving millions of users, and with that growth came a different kind of responsibility. The decisions we were making were no longer just about product features or growth plans. They were about trust.

Every creator who builds a community on UpScrolled is investing their time, energy and reputation into the platform. Every user who shares content, joins conversations or invites friends is placing trust in us. That trust matters. It's easy for social platforms to talk about community, transparency and user-first thinking. It's much harder to make decisions that genuinely reflect those principles when they're tested.

As UpScrolled grew, we found ourselves thinking more deeply about privacy, digital rights and what it actually means to put users first. Not in marketing campaigns or in policy documents. In practice.

At some point, we had to ask ourselves a simple question. If privacy and user control are core to what we're building, are we building in the right place?

The answer led us to the Netherlands.

The reality is that Issam wanted to continue to build UpScrolled in Australia. It's where the company was founded. It's where many of our earliest supporters came from. It's where friendships were built, communities formed, and the foundations of the platform took shape. Leaving wasn't part of the plan, but over time, it became increasingly important to build UpScrolled in an environment that reflected the principles we believe should shape the future of social media.

The Netherlands stood out for exactly that reason.

Privacy isn't something we view as a feature, it's not a checkbox, and it's not a trend. It influences how we think about product decisions, user trust, and our responsibility as a platform. It’s what our community deserves.

Choosing the Netherlands wasn't about finding the easiest place to operate. It was about finding the right place to build.

As a founding member of the Freedom Online Coalition and one of Europe's strongest enforcers of GDPR, the Netherlands has built a reputation for taking digital rights, privacy and online freedoms seriously. That wasn't a small detail for us, it became a major consideration.

The move also sits alongside a number of important changes we've introduced across UpScrolled.

What does this mean for our community, how will it impact their experience?

We've updated our legal and privacy frameworks to operate under Dutch jurisdiction, strengthened protections for users, reinforced our commitment to GDPR compliance, and introduced greater transparency around moderation, appeals and platform governance.

Today, platform users are asking tougher questions about how their information is collected and used. Creators are becoming more conscious of how much of their business depends on platforms they don't control. People want more transparency, more accountability, and more choice.

We think those are good things. They push platforms to be more transparent about who they're serving and why.

For us, the answer remains the same as it was on day one. We're building UpScrolled for the people who use it: the creators building communities, the users sharing ideas, content and conversations, and the people looking for a different kind of social media experience.

Moving to the Netherlands doesn't change that. It reinforces it.

It doesn't change our commitment to building in public or our willingness to listen to feedback, or our belief that users should have more control over their online experience.

What it does do is give us a home that better reflects who we are and the future we want to help build.

The social media industry spends a lot of time talking about growth, engagement and scale, and yes, those things matter, but none of them should be more important than trust.

As UpScrolled continues to grow, we'll keep making decisions through that lens, even when those decisions aren't the easiest ones to make. This move is one of those decisions.

The address has changed. The mission hasn't.

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About UpScrolled

UpScrolled puts people back in control of their social media experience. Founded by Issam Hijazi, a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian technologist, it was built on a simple principle: social media should serve people, not exploit them. No shadowbanning. No data sales. Share freely, connect safely, trust your feed. Fairness and freedom in a digital landscape that has lost its way.

Notes to editors
UpScrolled is a social media platform built around transparency, user control and privacy. Founded by Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian Technologist, Issam Hijazi, the platform serves millions of users globally and operates under Dutch jurisdiction through UpScrolled B.V.

Media contact
Leila Dastyar | PR Director | leila@dna.online