- Divine aims to bring back spontaneous 6-second videos without AI-generated content.
- After the launch announcement, 10,000 users quickly joined the iOS beta test.
- Divine includes 170,000 archived Vine videos to complement new user-generated content.
“Is road construction about to start? I hope so.”
“Look at those chickens.”
“Oh, I might have dropped my croissant.”
These three lines can transport millennials and Gen Z adults straight back to the nostalgia of homey sketches, chaotic impressions, and six-second masterpieces.
Now, those moments are back with a new app called Divine. This is a decentralized reboot of Vine that aims to bring back spontaneous human-created videos in a social media world that is increasingly being shaped by AI.
On Thursday, Divine developer Evan Henshaw-Path posted on X that the app’s iOS beta test reached its user limit within four hours. Once your app is approved for publication, it will be available on divine.video on both iOS and Android.
According to the app’s website, Divine is “social media by humans, for humans,” purposefully built to restore the “creative, funny, weird, and surprisingly human” authenticity that defined the original platform from 2013 to 2017.
“‘Do it for the Vine’ was more than just a meme,” Divine’s website says. “It was a celebration of real human expression.”
TechCrunch reports that the project was launched with support from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey through and Other Stuff, a nonprofit organization that funds experimental open source projects aimed at reinventing the social web.
“What is that?”…’ 170,000 archived videos
According to Divine’s website, the idea began during an interview on the podcast Revolution.Social when guests Yoel Roth and Taylor Lorenz mentioned how much the internet lost with the demise of Vine.
That nostalgia gave rise to the following questions: If Vine is so important to online culture, why not bring it back? This time we will use decentralized technology that is not controlled by the company.
To rebuild it, Divine turned to the work of the Archive Team, a volunteer group that rescued much of Vine’s content before it shut down. According to the project’s site, Divine is now importing archived clips from the Internet Archive to provide “a new home for authentic video from the pre-AI era on the decentralized web.”
The app currently contains approximately 170,000 saved videos. Because these videos were created long before today’s AI video generation tools, they each receive a special archive badge and are automatically tagged as “Human-Made.”
62,000 accounts have also been restored, and users will be able to request and receive login credentials for their accounts if they can prove that the account is theirs.
“Road construction ahead? I hope so…” is not AI.
Divine mirrors Vine’s original structure.
- Maximum video length is 6 seconds
- automatic loop
- MP4 format
This includes feeds such as Home, Discovery, Trending, and hashtag-based browsing, allowing users to create curated lists. In the original Vine, this could only be done by employees. Now, anyone can create themed collections, playlists, or “editor-picked” style groups for their niche or community.
The app describes its mission as an antidote to the rise of what it calls “AI slop,” the synthetic videos that flood platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Forbes reports that 71% of images on social media are generated by AI.
The app uses a “human-made” badge that users can receive on videos to ensure they are not generated by AI. To verify, Divine uses:
- ProofMode is a cryptographic verification system that uses hardware certificates to prove that the video was captured on a real device.
- Machine learning analysis identifies suspicious AI-generated content.
- Community reporting using Nostr’s decentralized moderation standards.
“Hey, sorry I couldn’t see you there. …’ We were too busy blocking illegal content
Despite being decentralized, Divine has strict boundaries around the servers it operates on. In accordance with its safety standards, this platform maintains a “zero tolerance policy” against child sexual abuse material, illegal content, harassment, hate speech, non-consensual images, and spam.
Content is filtered through AI detection tools and human reviews, and Divine promises to respond to reports within 24 hours and take immediate action against illegal content.
“Hey, I want to be famous” – Creator to make money
Divine also aims to solve one of Vine’s core problems: not paying creators. It offers several ways to fund popular influencers and promises to take significantly less of their profits. Creators will ultimately be able to earn money through channels such as:
- Viewers can tip creators directly.
- Instant payments with low fees using Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.
- Privacy-protected payments using Cashu e-cash.
- Subscriber-only content features.
“Free Shabakad” and decentralized social media
Unlike the original Vine, which was shut down after platform owner Twitter made the corporate decision to retire the app in 2017, Divine is designed to prevent any company from taking it offline again.
The website emphasizes that this is an independent project that has “no connection to X (formerly Twitter) or the original Vine platform.” Use Nostr instead. Nostr is a decentralized open protocol that distributes content across many independent relays rather than one company’s servers.
In a statement provided to TechCrunch, Dorsey said Nostr allows developers to build networks “without the need for venture capital backing, toxic business models, or large teams of engineers,” and said he funded Divine to show what’s possible, especially when business owners can’t shut down social platforms.
The app is completely open source, and both the iOS/Flutter app and web client are available on GitHub.
