As generative AI content increasingly saturates social media platforms, a new initiative backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey aims to revive the essence of Vine’s iconic six-second loop videos. The release of the app, known as diVine, coincided with the release of over 100,000 archived Vine videos that were recently restored from backups created before Vine was shut down.
The diVine app is more than just a nostalgic throwback. This allows users to establish a profile and upload new Vine videos. However, in a significant departure from traditional social media platforms, diVine has built-in safeguards against AI-generated content, tagging posts that appear to be AI-generated and preventing them from being uploaded.
The venture is funded by Dorsey’s nonprofit organization and Other Stuff, which was founded in May 2025 with the mission of supporting experimental open source projects and tools aimed at reshaping the social media landscape.
Evan Henshaw Plass, an early Twitter employee and member of “and Other Stuff,” took on the task of digging into the Vine archives after it shut down in 2016. The Archives Team, a group dedicated to preserving dangerous Internet content, stored Vine videos in large amounts of binary files that were not available for casual viewing. Henshaw-Plath, also known as Rabble, sought to extract and reconstruct these old Vine videos to form the backbone of a new mobile app.
Henshaw-Plas describes his vision: “Can we not only create something nostalgic that allows us to revisit old moments, but also bring back the days of social media when users had more control over algorithms and generally knew the real people behind the content they consumed?”
After months of developing data scripts and decoding archive files, he was able to reconstruct most of the videos and user interactions, re-establishing the profiles of many Vine creators.
Rabble revealed that while the app hosts “approximately 150,000 to 200,000 videos from approximately 60,000 creators,” it does not include a significant number of lesser-known videos that are not archived, especially from niche fields like K-pop.
Content creators who still own the copyright to their work can request removal via the DMCA, as long as they can verify ownership through their associated social media accounts. This verification process is manual, but creators can upload new videos or submit content that may have been overlooked during restoration.
To ensure that video uploads are truly human-generated, diVine leverages technology from the Guardian Project, a nonprofit organization focused on content verification. The effort aims to check things like whether the video was actually recorded on a smartphone.
DiVine runs on Nostr, Dorsey’s decentralized protocol that allows developers to create their own applications without relying on venture capital or traditional business models. Dorsey emphasizes this philosophy, saying, “Nostr enables developers to design a new wave of applications based on permissionless protocols that are not affected by corporate shutdowns.”
Despite Twitter’s current ownership and Elon Musk’s previous hints of a Vine revival (he has reportedly discovered old video archives), no formal plans have materialized. In contrast, diVine positions itself as a legitimate platform through its use of public archives and respect for creators’ copyright ownership.
Rabble believes that in contrast to the popularity of generative AI tools, there is a significant trend among consumers to seek socially-driven experiences without the influence of AI. “Companies value AI engagement, and they assume that people want AI engagement,” he explained. “But we’re also striving for ownership in our online presence and social interactions. There’s clearly a yearning for the early days of community-centric Web 2.0, beyond mere engagement metrics.”
The diVine app is accessible on both iOS and Android platforms and allows users to revisit cherished Vine moments and create new content within a controlled and authentic environment.
