Is Vine back? Short-form video-sharing app Divine opens to public
Divine represents a revival of the short-form video format that Vine popularised before its 2017 shutdown, introducing technical and community safeguards intended to preserve content authenticity. The new platform restricts videos to human-created six-second clips and employs verification systems alongside user reporting mechanisms to exclude AI-generated material, whilst operating on decentralised infrastructure that allows users greater sovereignty over their accounts and content portability across compatible networks.
The application capitalised on platform nostalgia by reconstructing millions of archived Vine videos using preserved internet data, generating substantial early adoption with tens of thousands of downloads within its first hours. Founder Evan Henshaw-Plath, supported by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has positioned Divine as correcting trajectory issues within contemporary social media ecosystems. Industry analysts note a critical paradox the platform must resolve: engineering user retention without deploying the habit-forming algorithms and engagement mechanisms that characterised earlier platforms' commercial success.
- Divine launches as spiritual successor to defunct Vine, featuring six-second videos with human-creation requirement and decentralised infrastructure
- Platform restored 2M+ original Vine videos from archives and achieved 10k+ downloads within launch hours; backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey
- Faces inherent tension: must sustain engagement whilst deliberately removing addictive algorithmic features that made predecessor platforms successful
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Vine was a video-sharing app built around short looping clips, popular in the 2010s. It closed in 2017, but many of its videos remained part of internet culture and were later preserved in online archives.
Divine is a new app built around six-second videos, founded by Evan Henshaw-Plath with support from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. It draws on archived Vine clips and says it will allow only human-made videos, using checks and user reports to enforce that rule.
The app also uses decentralised technology, which can give users more control over their accounts and make it easier to move content between compatible services. Its challenge is to keep people coming back while avoiding the attention-grabbing design choices used by many social media platforms.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters argue that Divine addresses genuine harms created by engagement-driven algorithms that have come to dominate contemporary social media, offering instead a platform built on authenticity, user autonomy, and community integrity. The technical safeguards against AI-generated content and the decentralised infrastructure represent a thoughtful response to real concerns about platform manipulation, data control, and the erosion of human creativity. Vine's original success and the demonstrated user appetite for its revival suggest there is legitimate demand for an alternative to algorithmic feeds designed primarily to maximise engagement rather than user wellbeing. By restoring what was lost and learning from the mistakes of platforms that prioritised growth over sustainable community, Divine offers users a genuinely different experience grounded in humanist values.
The case against
Critics contend that Divine must solve a fundamental business problem that has eluded all previous attempts: maintaining user engagement without the very algorithms that have proven essential to platform growth and retention. Whilst the platform's reliance on archived Vine content and early enthusiasm for nostalgia may create initial interest, sustainable long-term viability requires fresh organic content creation and active user participation, neither of which is guaranteed. The promises of robust safeguards and effective AI detection, though well-intentioned, remain unproven in practice, and decentralised moderation structures may paradoxically make protecting users and maintaining community standards more difficult. Early adoption figures, whilst encouraging, are insufficient evidence of long-term viability, particularly when the fundamental tension between user autonomy and retention remains unresolved.