Practically a decade after going offline, Vine is (form 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 mission 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 Rabble has to this point managed to resurrect about 170,000 movies from the unique Vine due to an outdated archive created earlier than Twitter shut down the app in 2017.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 “tens of millions” of consumer feedback and profile images 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 parts that might 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 assist customized, user-created algorithms too.
Divine can also be taking a fairly robust stance towards AI-generated content material. The app could 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, based on TechCrunch, the app will block uploads of suspected AI content material.
“We’re in the course 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 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 may belief that what you are watching was made by an actual individual with an actual digital camera, not generated by an algorithm.”
Whereas all which will sound intriguing, Divine has a protracted strategy 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 folks to an iOS beta, based on its founder. Within the meantime, you may also browse a few of the app’s movies, together with some outdated Vine posts, on its web site, although not all the movies are working correctly for the time being.
Nonetheless, any sort of reboot is nice information for followers of the unique, who’ve lengthy hoped the app would possibly make a comeback. Elon Musk has advised extra than as soon as that he would revive Vine in a roundabout way, however has but to observe by way of.