Dorsey's War on AI: The Return of Vine You Can't Miss

• Jack Dorsey's nonprofit is funding "diVine," a spiritual successor to the iconic six-second video app, Vine.
• The new app launches with a restored archive of over 100,000 classic Vine videos, bringing back beloved content from its heyday.
• In a direct challenge to modern social media trends, diVine will actively flag and prevent AI-generated content from being uploaded.
• Built on the decentralized Nostr protocol, the project aims to give users a more authentic, algorithm-free social experience.

The Return of a Social Media Legend

In a landscape increasingly saturated with generative AI, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is backing a nostalgic return to authenticity. A new app, diVine, has launched to resurrect the spirit of Vine, the beloved short-form video platform that was shut down in 2016. Financed by Dorsey's "and Other Stuff" nonprofit, diVine not only allows users to create new six-second looping videos but also provides access to a massive, restored archive of the platform's most iconic content.

A Nostalgic Archive Reborn

The project was spearheaded by Evan Henshaw-Plath (also known as Rabble), an early Twitter employee. He delved into backups created by the Archive Team, a community project that saved Vine’s content before its servers went dark. After months of writing scripts to reconstruct the massive binary files, Rabble successfully restored 150,000 to 200,000 videos from approximately 60,000 creators, including user data and even some of the original comments.

"Can we do something that’s kind of nostalgic?" Henshaw-Plath told TechCrunch. "Can we do something that takes us back… to an era of social media where you could either have control of your algorithms, or you could choose who you follow… and where you know that it’s a real person that recorded the video?"

A Stand Against the AI Tide

What truly sets diVine apart is its firm stance against artificial intelligence. The app is designed to be a sanctuary for human-made content. New uploads will be verified using technology from the human rights nonprofit, the Guardian Project, which helps confirm that a video was genuinely recorded on a smartphone. Any content suspected of being AI-generated will be flagged and blocked, ensuring the feed remains authentic.

This move directly addresses a growing user sentiment that social feeds are becoming indistinguishable from AI-driven content mills. "Companies see the AI engagement and they think that people want it," Rabble explained, arguing that users still crave agency over their social experiences and want to build real communities, not just "game the algorithm."

Decentralized and Open for All

Underpinning diVine is Nostr, a decentralized protocol favored by Dorsey. This open-source foundation means developers are free to build their own apps, hosts, and servers without corporate oversight.

"The reason I funded the non-profit… is to allow creative engineers like Rabble 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," Dorsey stated.

What About the Original Creators?

Vine creators still own the copyright to their work and can request a DMCA takedown. Alternatively, they can claim their old accounts by verifying ownership through social media accounts previously linked in their Vine bios, allowing them to post new content or upload old videos missed in the restoration.

This launch notably preempts a similar promise from X owner Elon Musk, who announced in August that he would bring back the Vine archive but has yet to release anything. For now, diVine is the premier destination for fans wanting to relive the golden age of six-second comedy, available on both iOS and Android.