Divine, the Vine reboot, opens to everyone without invite codes

While not officially affiliated with the original Vine, which folded nearly a decade ago, Divine uses the same six-second looping video format. The app includes a "classic" feed of clips from Vine's original archive; the company has restored more than two million original videos so far. Divine is funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, though the company says he holds no equity or ownership in the venture.

Divine is built on the decentralized open-source nostr protocol, also funded by Dorsey. The app aims to keep out AI-generated content: users can only share videos recorded with Divine's in-app camera, and the app has built-in AI detection tools for verification.

Evan "Rabble" Henshaw-Plath, Divine's creator, told Engadget that the app contains "lots of weird stuff" and is "completely unique." He said, "A whole bunch of what you see on social media is people clipping content and moving it around between things. None of the stuff you see on Divine was ever on other platforms before, it was either on Vine originally or it's now on Divine. You're not going to see the same thing that you see on TikTok and Instagram."

Henshaw-Plath is also thinking about creator monetization, which was never available on Vine. "We don't know exactly how it's all going to work, but we do know that as creators grow, as they build an audience, they want the ability to make money," he said.

The public launch comes as nostalgia for older social media platforms grows. A recent documentary about Myspace prompted speculation about a comeback, though no specific plans have been announced. Smaller apps have also tried to recreate the simplicity of early social media. Henshaw-Plath believes some nostalgia is driven by the "hope and excitement" once associated with social media. "With Divine, our theory is that part of the problem is that we centralize power in a few people's control," he said. "Our solution is: let's not put ourselves in charge again. Let's bring back the old content. Let's empower people to not have AI slop, and let's design it this way so that it can't be enshittified in the future."