Vine reboot – Divine, backed by Jack Dorsey’s nonprofit and built on open social tools, is now available on app stores with restored Vine clips and a new anti-AI feed approach.
Divine—the Vine reboot project—has started rolling out to the public, bringing back the six-second looping format with a restored archive and a new rulebook for what should (and shouldn’t) appear in the feed.
For anyone who remembers Vine as a training ground for creators and a generator of internet culture. the launch lands like more than nostalgia.. Divine is available as a free download on the App Store and Google Play. with access initially tied to a waitlist and invite codes.. The core promise is straightforward: it’s meant to feel like Vine again. but built with modern choices around authenticity. provenance. and open-network publishing.
A restored Vine library—and new posting
Divine’s starting lineup is the result of an unusually technical recovery effort. The app gives users access to roughly 500,000 Vine videos restored from a backup of the original service, alongside the option to post new Vines.
The restoration work wasn’t a simple file transfer.. Many videos existed as large binary files (40–50GB chunks). requiring big-data scripts to reconstruct the videos and. critically. the associated engagement signals—views. likes. and comments—from Vine’s original ecosystem.. Not every piece of data was recoverable, but the project grew quickly during its private testing phase.
Dorsey’s nonprofit aims to reshape social media incentives
Divine is financed by “and Other Stuff,” a nonprofit founded in May 2025 by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.. The relationship matters because it signals a different intent than typical venture funding.. Dorsey-backed support here isn’t about returns; it’s framed as correcting an earlier decision—Vine’s shutdown—made during his time running Twitter.
Dorsey’s involvement also fits a broader bet about social media: that the platform layer shouldn’t be owned solely by a handful of corporate networks.. Divine’s approach is less about controlling attention through advertising and more about rebuilding the social stack so creators and communities can participate without being trapped.
Why Divine is trying to block “AI slop”
One of Divine’s most distinctive positioning choices is its stance on AI-generated content.. The app is designed to filter out AI-created posts that many users have begun referring to as “AI slop.” The team’s reasoning is straightforward: users shouldn’t feel tricked or flooded with low-human-signal content.
Practically. Divine aims to keep the network cleaner by requiring either that users record videos directly in the app or that uploaded videos be verified using C2PA. an open industry standard intended to establish content origin and edits.. That verification layer is important for the business and platform side of the problem: if identity and provenance are harder to fake. it becomes harder for spam-like automation to degrade creator ecosystems.
Open protocols, creator control, and a different monetization path
Divine’s broader mission is to push open protocols as an alternative to closed platforms controlled by large tech companies.. The app is built on Nostr. and it’s also experimenting with integrating other open systems such as AT Protocol (used by Bluesky).. In future plans, it may look toward ActivityPub—another open protocol underlying alternative social networks.
That technical foundation matters beyond engineering.. Open protocols can reduce switching costs for creators. make it easier to port audiences. and limit the degree to which platform owners can change rules unilaterally.. In human terms. that’s the difference between “building a following on someone else’s property” and building in a network where you may have more leverage over how your presence functions.
Divine also doesn’t present itself as a conventional startup chasing a revenue model.. It’s structured as a public benefit corporation, and the current plan is to keep the app free.. Still. creator monetization is part of the idea—brand deals and collaborations remain familiar paths for Vine-style creators. while the team has floated concepts like patron-style support (Patreon) and a potential Pro account for extra features.
The market question: can a reboot reset culture again?
The bigger challenge isn’t whether Divine can technically resurrect loops—it’s whether it can recapture the behavioral economics that made Vine work: fast creation, easy discovery, and a community rhythm that rewarded experimentation.
Divine’s “compilation mode” is one signal the team understands what made Vine sticky.. Instead of presenting a purely chronological feed. users can create themed compilations (for example. via hashtag browsing like #cats) and autoplay a stream. then pause to interact—like reposting or liking.. It’s a subtle nod to how the youngest audiences learned internet storytelling: not through long-form discovery. but through quick. remixable clips.
There’s also a social feedback loop at play.. Early Viners encouraged the team to slow down and get the product right. arguing the goal shouldn’t be “just nostalgia.” If Divine succeeds. it won’t only be a comeback story; it could be a template for how platforms can blend preservation. authenticity tooling. and open distribution.
What to watch next
The initial rollout suggests cautious scaling: access begins with waitlist users and grows gradually via invite codes. That phased approach will likely determine whether Divine can sustain content quality under real-world demand.
If Divine’s anti-AI approach holds up operationally—and if open-protocol interoperability keeps improving—it may carve out an audience that’s tired of novelty without meaning.. For creators. that could mean fewer low-signal posts drowning out genuine work; for users. it could mean a feed that feels less like a treadmill and more like a community.
Divine’s relaunch is free to download on the major app stores and on a Nostr-powered storefront (Zapstore).. Whether it becomes a durable new hub or a striking cultural footnote may depend on one thing more than technology: whether creators and viewers choose to show up—consistently—for the next wave of six-second internet stories.