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The Biggest Reboot No One Ever Expected. Vine Returns as 'Divine'

In addition to bringing back 6-second videos, the app also plans to ban AI-generated videos.

Headshot of Corin Cesaric-Epple
Headshot of Corin Cesaric-Epple
Corin Cesaric-Epple Editor
Corin Cesaric-Epple is a Flex Editor at CNET. She received her bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Before joining CNET, she covered crime at People Magazine and national and international news at NBC Local Television Stations.
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Corin Cesaric-Epple
2 min read
divine app

Vine is back! (Sort of.)

 Divine/Tharon Green/CNET

Before TikTok, 6-second video app Vine was the king of short videos. Now, Vine may be looking to take back its crown. Nearly nine years after the app was shut down by its parent company Twitter, a strikingly similar app has arrived, and it has plans to successfully ban the one thing that everyone hates on social media: AI slop.

The brand new app, called Divine, was funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and created by early Twitter employee Evan Henshaw-Plath (also known as Rabble). It will feature more than 100,000 archived Vine videos, according to a press release shared with CNET, and users will also be able to create new content. That is, unless they're planning to use generative AI to do so.

"With AI-produced content fast becoming indistinguishable from regular content, AI slop has been flooding centralized mainstream social media platforms with requirements to tag AI content being largely ignored or enforced," the press release reads. "Divine, which flags suspected GenAI content and prevents it from being posted, has been designed to bring back the days of 'real content made by real people.'" 

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a green background with video clips

The Divine app is currently in beta testing.

 Divine

In addition to bringing back the six-second video loops, Henshaw-Plath specifically underscored that he wants Divine to provide real human connection without AI or ad-based algorithms. 

"I want to show people that we don't need to settle for this dystopia," he said in the release, later adding: "With apps like Divine, we can see the alternative."

Henshaw-Plath has previously spoken out about the changes he'd like to see in the digital age. In July, he published a Medium post titled "We Deserve Better: A New Social Media Bill of Rights," which outlined his vision for new social media apps. 

"The path forward begins with understanding that we are not passive consumers of social media -- we are active participants in shaping its future," he wrote. 

Dorsey funded Divine through his non-profit And Other Stuff. In the release, Dorsey said that he created his non-profit "to allow creative engineers like [Henshaw-Plath] to show what's possible in this new world, by using permissionless protocols, which can't be shut down based on the whim of a corporate owner."

The Divine app is currently in beta testing, and you can be added to the waitlist to test out the new app now.Â