Vine Reboot Divine, Backed by Jack Dorsey, Launches Publicly

The long-awaited return of Vine’s signature six-second looping videos has officially arrived. A new platform called Divine is now live on both the App Store and Google Play, offering users access to a restored archive of roughly 500,000 classic Vine videos and the ability to create and share new ones.

This reboot is backed by Jack Dorsey, the Twitter co-founder who originally shut down Vine in 2016. Dorsey’s involvement comes through “and Other Stuff,” a nonprofit he established in May 2025 that funds experimental open source projects aimed at reshaping social media. Notably, Dorsey isn’t seeking a financial return. His motivation is personal: correcting what he now views as a strategic error from his time as Twitter’s CEO.

The technical resurrection of Vine’s content was spearheaded by Evan Henshaw-Plath, an early Twitter engineer known online as “Rabble.” He discovered that much of the original Vine library had been preserved by the Archive Team, a community archiving project. However, the data was stored in massive 40 to 50 GB binary files, requiring Rabble to write custom scripts to decode the structure and reconstruct the videos along with their associated engagement metrics, such as views, likes, and comments.

The restoration has been a gradual process. Divine first launched to testers last November with about 100,000 of Vine’s most popular videos. That number grew to roughly 300,000 ahead of today’s public debut. Now, the app hosts half a million videos from nearly 100,000 original creators. Early Vine stars like Lele Pons, JimmyHere, MightyDuck, and Jack and Jack have already engaged with the platform. You can browse user profiles on the web even without the mobile app.

Rabble initially planned a quick public rollout after early tests. But the first users pushed back. “It was actually the Viners who were like ‘no, no , this is way more important than just nostalgia’,” he explains. They wanted a platform that could reset social media and filter out what they call “AI slop.” Rabble says they insisted the team take time to build it right. So the team rewrote parts of the code and focused heavily on design.

The version launching today includes a compilation mode, a feature designed for the generation that grew up watching Vines. Users can visit a hashtag, like #cats, and watch an autoplay stream of matching videos. They can stop to interact by reposting or liking, or simply sit back and watch the loop.

A defining characteristic of Divine is its strict ban on AI-generated content. “I decided that I was going to filter out AI content because I personally don’t like seeing AI content. I don’t like feeling tricked,” Rabble says. To enforce this, users must either record videos directly in the app or verify uploaded content using C2PA, an open industry standard that tracks the origin and edits of digital media.

Beyond nostalgia, Divine has a larger mission: promoting open protocols and wresting control of social media from big tech. The app is built on Nostr, an open social protocol, and the team is experimenting with Bluesky’s AT Protocol. Future integrations could include ActivityPub, the protocol behind Mastodon, Flipboard, and Meta’s Threads.

Divine currently has no revenue model and operates as a public benefit corporation. Rabble envisions creators monetizing through brand deals or collaborations, as they do now. He also favors the Patreon model for direct fan support and the possibility of a Pro account with extra features.

“Many of us came from Vine, and it was the beginning of everything,” says Lele Pons. “An iconic app. It was such a key moment in my own personal journey, and in internet culture, it makes me so happy to see these early classics brought back to life, and to have the chance to make new ones.”

Divine is available as a free download on the App Store, Google Play, and the Nostr-powered Zapstore. Access will initially be granted to those on the waitlist, with others let in gradually via invite codes.