Vine Returns in the AI Era: The Winning Strategy for a 'Human-Centric SNS' as Shown by Jack Dorsey-Backed 'diVine'
Vine, which once took the world by storm with its 6-second looping videos, is being revived in 2025, the golden age of AI.
Supporting this revival is Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and his new project, 'diVine'.
This attempt to intentionally bring 'human creativity' and 'nostalgia' into a modern social media environment flooded with generative AI content is more than just nostalgia.
1. Rebooting Vine: What 'diVine' Aims to Achieve
In November 2025, the non-profit organization 'and Other Stuff,' funded by Dorsey, launched a new app called 'diVine'.
The app reconstructs over 100,000 original Vine videos that were backed up before the platform's shutdown, allowing users to watch and post once again.
What makes it distinctive is its clear stance on AI-generated content.
diVine has introduced a mechanism to 'automatically detect videos suspected of being AI-generated and block them from being posted.'
What Dorsey is advocating for is a 'social space where human existence can be verified.'
'I want to bring back a social network where people choose people, not algorithms, and where videos actually filmed in reality are what circulate.'
— Evan Henshaw-Plath (known as Rabble, a former early Twitter member)
2. Resurrection from the Archives: Technical Challenges and the Spirit of 'Preservation'
The restoration of the Vine archive was handled by the Archive Team, a grassroots archiving group.
When Twitter announced the shutdown of Vine in 2016, they saved the videos as massive 40-50GB binary files.
However, as they were, they were nothing more than a 'data graveyard' that no one could easily watch.
Rabble spent months analyzing this archive, reconstructing approximately 150,000 to 200,000 videos and information on 60,000 creators.
They even restored some of the view counts and comments, bringing back the old social media culture in a 'reproducible form'.
'It wasn't possible to get everything, but we were able to reconstruct many popular Vines. We gave each creator a new profile.' (Rabble)
However, some genres, such as K-pop videos, were not saved.
Even so, it can be called an unprecedented success as an attempt to reclaim the 'core' of Vine culture.
3. Open Source × Verifiability: 'Trust Design' in the AI Era
At the core of diVine, the decentralized protocol 'Nostr' is adopted.
This is a 'censorship-resistant and permissionless' social media foundation that Dorsey has long supported, and an open mechanism that allows developers to freely build their own apps and hosts.
Furthermore, to verify the authenticity of human-filmed footage, technology from the human rights organization 'The Guardian Project' has been implemented.
It confirms evidence that the footage was captured on an actual smartphone, preventing the inclusion of AI-generated material.
'The time has come when we can build ethical and creative social networks without VC funding or massive teams.'
— Jack Dorsey
This is also the reason why Dorsey established 'and Other Stuff'.
He is attempting to build the infrastructure to support 'free social networks that are not shut down for corporate convenience' through the power of non-profit and open source.
4. Not Nostalgia but 'Redesign': What is Missing in Social Media in the AI Era
On social media dominated by generative AI, many posts are automatically generated and optimized 'performances'.
However, Rabble sounds this alarm:
'Companies mistake 'AI engagement' for user desire. We are participating, but what we really want is
our own agency and human connection.'
In other words, diVine is not a rejection of AI, but a re-experimentation of 'social media design where humans are back at the center'.
There is a structural nostalgia there for the dawn of Web 2.0—the era when blogs, podcasts, and communities were born spontaneously.
5. Paving the Way for the Future: An Attempt to Reclaim 'Humanity Within AI'
Current owner Elon Musk has also hinted at a revival of Vine on X (formerly Twitter), but
at this moment, the only thing taking shape is the Dorsey-backed diVine.
Moreover, it is not a 'corporate-led revival,' but rather stands in an entirely new context ofnon-profit, decentralized, and human-verified.
This trend can be called a redefinition of 'trust,' 'creativity,' and 'self-determination' in social media during the AI era.
If this attempt succeeds, it may give birth to a new social model that coexists with AI while clearly guaranteeing 'who created it.'
Summary
diVine is not just a 'nostalgic Vine.'
It is a prototype exploring a future where human expression is not buried in a sea of AI.
What Dorsey and Rabble are looking at is the redesign of the origin of social media—a world where 'real humans share real moments.'