'Divine' is a Jack Dorsey-backed Vine reboot for 2025

[ad_1] Almost a decade after going offline, Vine is (kind of) again and, in a very 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 referred to 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 Different Stuff," which funds experimental social media apps constructed on the open supply nostr protocol. Rabble has thus far managed to resurrect about 170,000 movies from the unique Vine because of an outdated archive created earlier than Twitter shut down the app in 2017.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 "hundreds of thousands" of consumer feedback and profile pictures related to these unique posts as nicely.

However Divine is greater than only a house for decade-old clips. New customers can create six-second looping movies of their very own for the platform. The app additionally has many components that can 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 positioning's FAQ says Divine plans to help customized, user-created algorithms too.

Divine can be taking a fairly sturdy stance in opposition to AI-generated content material. The app may have built-in AI detection instruments that may add badges to content material that is been verified as not created or edited with AI instruments. And, in line with 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 fully 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 digital camera, 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 possibly can belief that what you are watching was made by an actual individual with an actual digital camera, not generated by an algorithm."

Whereas all that will sound intriguing, Divine has an extended option to go earlier than it will possibly 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, in line with its founder. Within the meantime, you can even browse among the app's movies, together with some outdated Vine posts, on its web site, although not all the movies are working correctly in the meanwhile.

Nonetheless, any type of reboot is sweet information for followers of the unique, who've lengthy hoped the app may make a comeback. Elon Musk has urged greater than as soon as that he would revive Vine indirectly, however has but to observe by.