Life On A Dead Planet

I tried Upscrolled. I didn't like it

I'll be honest. I am not even sure why I tried it. I am literally trying to reduce my social media apps, and here I am trying out another one, just because everyone on the Interweb is moving over there. FOMO, am I right? I was reading how it was supposed to be like Instagram, but with chronological feeds. It was supposed to be like X, but without the hate. It was supposed to be like TikTok but without the shady ownership. It was supposed to be like Threads, only better. With reviews like that, I'd be a fool not to give it a go, right?

So, found it on the appstore, installed it and set about creating my account. Creating accounts for a new app is always tricky, especially when you're not really sure what you're going to use this account for, or whether my boss will find it, or if the customs officials at JFK Airport will one day need to get access to this, so you need to be careful. I have a few aliases (this is not my first rodeo) so I chose one of those, entered the verification code and, hey presto, I'm in!!!

Not being altogether sure what I've gotten into, I wanted to tread carefully so I went in search of pictures of Amsterdam. Totally safe, what could possibly go wrong here? Well, quite a lot as it happens. The first picture I saw was of an Amsterdam street scene, a building somewhere in the center of town, with it's windows open and from those windows were draped a number of Palestinian flags, as well as one of those Rainbow flags you see about the place. The comments underneath started out on a good, positive note.

fuck Israel!!1

Ok, strap in. It's going to get rough ...

After that, the comment section descended into the predictable keyboard warrior exchange of fire, with not a single comment about the photo up above. I tried a few others, similar photos but, again, no good discussion, just a lot of rage, bait, and hate. It was pretty depressing. And I'm only five minutes in.

Upscrolled was founded and developed by Issam Hijaz a a combination guaranteed to bring out the worst in people. Not only Palestinian, but also once a contractor for Oracle, the very same company founded by Larry Ellison, the billionaire ally of Trump whose family media and entertainment empire just got bigger and with whom TikTok has signed a deal to sell its U.S. operations. This is basically like waving a bright red rag to the tin foil-hat brigade.

Issam Hijaz is a Palestinian-Jordanian-Australian technologist with decades of experience at companies like IBM, Oracle, and Hitachi.

The trending tab was pretty much to be expected:

and so on. A lovely list to get the day started. A random click on any of these and pit of hate that would make Hieronymus Bosch get his paintbox out opens up. It was just awful to read, when all I want is to be entertained, or informed.

I decided I'd seen enough. I deleted my account, deleted the app.

Total time spent: nine minutes. Enough to last a lifetime.

Your mileage may vary, and feel free to try it out, but be warned: the grass is not always greener on the other side.