Divine, a new social media platform that promises no AI, no under 13s, and no ad algorithms, launches today with backing from Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter.
There’s a lot of nostalgia for the community feel of pre-Musk Twitter, and Divine is playing on a parallel yearning for simpler times by launching with 500,000 archived videos from Vine, Twitter’s 6-second video platform which shut down in 2017. Vine only lasted four years, but still lives in the memory and is probably most famous for launching the career of influencer/wrestler Logan Paul.
More importantly, perhaps, Divine wants to offer a safe space where kids are not monetised, addiction isn’t the model, there’s no AI slop, and advertising is not intrusive. Launch commercial partner Taco Bell will get prominence in Divine’s ‘featured’ feed, and the fast food chain’s customers are getting early access to the platform.
Alice Chan, Divine’s chief marketing officer, said the Taco Bell deal “sets the standard for how we want brands to show up in Divine – in ways that are joyful, creative and a natural extension of the community, not an interruption to it.” Brand spotlights, sponsorship and badges will take the place of the constant commercials intrusion users get on other platforms.
Divine’s sell is around being “a new playground for human creativity” that will “support the growth of the creator economy”. Founder Rabble (also part of the original Twitter team), hopes “Divine will start to redress the balance of power by giving creators and users more of a say in their online social lives and businesses.”
The new, independent platform’s four point manifesto is built on creator ownership; human-first content; ‘deliberate’ design focused on creativity and constraint over engagement for an ad algorithm; and transparency built on an open protocol.
It’s the kind of app that, in an ideal world, will be hugely successful and solve a lot of problems. But as social media itself has been amplifying for the last few years, the world – and the people in it – are far from ideal.
