‘Divine’ is a Jack Dorsey-backed Vine reboot for 2025

Almost a decade after going offline, Vine is (kind of) again and, in a really weird twist, Jack Dorsey is at the very least partially accountable. An early Twitter worker has launched a beta model of a rebooted Vine — now known as “Divine” — that revives the app’s six-second movies and features a portion of the unique app’s archive.

The challenge comes from Evan Henshaw-Plath, a former Twitter worker who goes by “Rabble,” and has backing from Dorsey’s nonprofit “and Other Stuff,” which funds experimental social media apps constructed on the open supply nostr protocol. Rabble has to date managed to resurrect about 170,000 movies from the unique Vine due to an previous archive created earlier than Twitter shut down the app in 2017. In an FAQ on Divine’s web site, he says that he additionally hopes to revive “thousands and thousands” of consumer feedback and profile photographs related to these authentic posts as effectively.

However Divine is greater than only a residence for decade-old clips. New customers can create six-second looping movies of their very own for the platform. The app additionally has many parts that shall be acquainted to individuals who have used Bluesky or different decentralized platforms, together with customizable controls for content material moderation and a number of feed algorithms to select from. The location’s FAQ says Divine plans to help customized, user-created algorithms too.

Divine can be taking a fairly robust stance in opposition to AI-generated content material. The app may have built-in AI detection tools that can add badges to content material that is been verified as not created or edited with AI instruments. And, based on TechCrunch, the app will block uploads of suspected AI content material.

“We’re in the midst of an AI takeover of social media,” Divine explains on its web site. New apps like Sora are totally AI-generated. TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are more and more flooded with AI slop—movies that look actual however have been by no means captured by a digicam, individuals who do not exist, eventualities that by no means occurred. Divine is combating again. We’re creating an area the place human creativity is widely known and guarded, the place you’ll be able to belief that what you are watching was made by an actual particular person with an actual digicam, not generated by an algorithm.”

Whereas all which will sound intriguing, Divine has an extended strategy to go earlier than it might probably accomplish all that. The app hasn’t made it onto both app retailer but, although it is already added 10,000 individuals to an iOS beta, according to its founder. Within the meantime, you may also browse a number of the app’s movies, together with some previous Vine posts, on its website, although not all the movies are working correctly in the meanwhile.

Nonetheless, any type of reboot is nice information for followers of the unique, who’ve lengthy hoped the app would possibly make a comeback. Elon Musk has suggested extra than once that he would revive Vine ultimately, however has but to comply with via.