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Today's Topics:
1. The world is trying to log off U.S. tech (Kim Holburn)
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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2026 18:16:41 +1100
From: Kim Holburn <[email protected]>
To: Link mailing list <[email protected]>
Subject: [LINK] The world is trying to log off U.S. tech
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Interesting, so is upscrolled included in the government's under 16 ban?
https://restofworld.org/2026/big-tech-backlash-alternatives-upscrolled/
Some global users are turning to services like Proton Mail and UpScrolled
instead.
iStock/Rest of World
By Rina Chandran
2 February 2026
? ? Countries are growing uneasy about their dependence on U.S. technology
firms.
? ? Companies that take on big tech platforms with alternatives have often
failed.
? ? Government backing and user choices can help drive innovation and staying
power for non-U.S. tech companies.
In just the past week, France has banned its public officials from using
American technology, more governments are considering
keeping young people off Silicon Valley?s biggest social media platforms, and
UpScrolled saw a surge in users over censorship fears
on TikTok in the U.S. All of these moves point to a growing unease with U.S.
tech firms and tech policy.
?The backlash against U.S. tech companies, and the global market dependencies
on the American tech stack, is part of a broader
recognition that technology is not neutral, and that the companies that produce
and shape this ecosystem have social and political
interests in addition to their financial interests,? Jathan Sadowski, a senior
lecturer at the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at
Monash University in Melbourne, told Rest of World. ?I don?t think this is just
a phase.?
Shortly after the TikTok deal was announced last week, handing control of its
U.S. operations to a conglomerate that includes Oracle
Corporation, #TikTokCensorship began trending online. Tens of thousands of
users in the U.S., U.K., and Australia joined UpScrolled,
a new platform that promises to be a haven for free speech. UpScrolled quickly
became one of the most downloaded social media apps
in the U.S., and has reached more than 1 million users.
Issam Hijazi, the Palestinian-Australian founder of UpScrolled, credits much of
the platform?s recent success to a perception of
politically motivated moderation on platforms like TikTok, he told Rest of
World.
?A lot of people were asking why there is no alternative to the big tech
platforms for their content, which was getting censored,?
he said. ?So I thought, why don?t we build our own??
The European Union, which has attempted to rein in big tech companies with the
Digital Markets Act, is pushing homegrown options to
products from Meta, Google, and Microsoft ? including TomTom and Here for
navigation, and Visio for video calls. At the same time,
more countries are acting to keep young users off social media platforms.
India, the biggest market for Facebook and YouTube, is the
latest to suggest regulating access.
Paris Marx, the Canadian host of the Tech Won?t Save Us? podcast and a longtime
critic of U.S. big tech companies, has been
documenting his gradual ? and sometimes frustrating ? switch to non-U.S.
alternatives. His guide lists mostly European options for
email, search, maps and streaming, as well as Zoho, an Indian company that
offers products similar to Google at cheaper prices.
Zoho?s Arattai messaging service, pitched as a rival to WhatsApp, is endorsed
by Indian government officials pushing the ?Made in
India? policy. They also backed Koo as an option to X. Elsewhere In Asia,
Japan?s Line super-app, and South Korea?s KakaoTalk
messaging app and Naver Map are dominant in their countries, with Line also
preferred in much of Southeast Asia. Line has more than
200 million monthly users, while KakaoTalk has about 55 million users. Regional
ride hailing apps such as Grab and Gojek have fended
off Uber, with Grab building its own mapping system.
There is a realization that U.S. tech companies? policies and products ?often
fail to reflect the needs and realities of users in
the global majority,? Mona Shtaya, campaigns and partnerships director in the
Middle East and North Africa at lobby group Digital
Action, told Rest of World.
?It is interesting to see new, locally developed and owned platforms emerge,?
she said. ?Their success or failure will depend on
whether these platforms are genuinely responsive to community needs ? and on
how communities themselves participate in shaping and
governing them.?
The push for non-U.S. options is also about data security. Last year, Trump
signed an executive order sanctioning the International
Criminal Court and its chief prosecutor, British lawyer Karim Khan, for issuing
an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu. As part of that move, Microsoft reportedly cancelled Khan?s
email address. Khan switched to the Swiss provider
Proton Mail, which has over 100 million users worldwide.
Fears of a U.S. digital ?kill switch? led the ICC to drop Microsoft as a
service provider, and prompted European lawmakers to
question the security of cloud services provided by Amazon, Microsoft, and
Google. These concerns are also pushing some countries to
develop their own semiconductor industry. Chinese open-source foundation models
are already enabling small countries and companies
to build their own large language models.
For smaller countries, the main challenge in translating social and political
criticism of U.S. tech companies into successful
alternatives is funding, Sadowski said.
?Many startups, even outside of the U.S. tech stack, still depend heavily on
Silicon Valley for venture capital and other forms of
support to build alternatives,? he said. ?If governments want to take tech
sovereignty seriously ? and they should ? then that means
building capacity for indigenous innovations and ecosystems that are
disconnected from the domination of U.S. tech firms.?
UpScrolled?s Hijazi knows he faces a huge challenge, despite the surge of
interest in his platform.
?I?ll be lying to you if I tell you I know the answer to how to hold on to the
initial interest,? he said. ?But ? there is an
awakening globally, and people know they have been played by the big tech
companies and are looking for alternatives. I?m counting
on that.?
--
Kim Holburn
IT Network & Security Consultant
+61 404072753
mailto:[email protected] aim://kimholburn
skype://kholburn - PGP Public Key on request
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