Jack Dorsey just funded the resurrection of Vine.
Not to revive it. To weaponize it against AI.
The app is diVine—a reboot that bans AI-generated content entirely. Within four hours of opening TestFlight beta signups, 10,000 people joined the waitlist, according to founder Evan Henshaw-Plath. The platform uses Guardian Project tech to verify every video was recorded on an actual smartphone. No deepfakes. No synthetic clips. No AI avatars pretending to be your neighbor.
This isn't nostalgia. It's a declaration of war on the flood of synthetic content that now makes up the majority of new online material—with 74% of newly detected web pages containing at least some AI content, according to Ahrefs' 2025 study.
Here's what Dorsey sees that you don't: 62% of consumers now say trust is an important factor when choosing to engage with a brand, up from 56% in 2023 (Accenture). Meanwhile, nearly 60% of consumers doubt online authenticity and over half regularly question the authenticity of reviews they read.
The trust economy is collapsing. And the smart money is betting on human verification becoming the new SSL certificate.
But Dorsey's play is just the opening move. The real opportunity isn't another social app—it's the infrastructure layer that separates humans from machines across the entire internet.
As diVine founder Evan Henshaw-Plath told TechCrunch: "Companies see the AI engagement and they think that people want it. They're confusing, like—yes, people engage with it; yes, we're using these things—but we also want agency over our lives and over our social experiences."
The Signal: Money Is Flowing Into "Proof of Human"
Look where the capital is going:
Identity verification is exploding. Persona just raised $200 million at a $2 billion valuation, led by Founders Fund and Ribbit Capital. Veza closed $108 million led by New Enterprise Associates. Sam Altman's World (formerly Worldcoin) has raised $115 million plus $135 million in token sales from Andreessen Horowitz and Blockchain Capital to build iris-scanning orbs that verify you're human—with over 12.5 million people having created a World ID.
The market is massive and growing. The global identity and access management market is already at $19-20 billion in 2024, projected to reach $54-65 billion by the early 2030s, growing at 11-15% annually. The blockchain identity segment specifically is exploding even faster.
Platforms are segregating AI from human content. Meta introduced Vibes, a short-form video feed that features only AI-generated clips—explicitly separating synthetic from human. Pinterest now labels AI-generated pins. Reddit's fighting Perplexity in court over data scraping and treating verified human interaction as a competitive asset. Technologist Kevin Rose predicts the future of social media will focus on "micro communities of trusted users" with "proof of heartbeat."
Creators are building human-only sanctuaries. Cara, an anti-AI platform for artists, exploded from 40,000 to over 1 million users in just weeks after Meta confirmed it would train AI on Instagram posts. The app has a zero-tolerance policy for generated images and integrates tools like Glaze to cloak artwork from AI training.
The pattern is clear: Human verification is becoming table stakes. The question isn't whether this infrastructure gets built—it's who owns the consumer-facing layer.
The Wedge: Start With Cozy, AI-Free Rooms
Don't build Facebook 2.0. Don't chase viral growth. Build the digital equivalent of a members-only club where the bouncer checks for a pulse.
Think Discord meets Squarespace, but with a militant stance against synthetic content.
The MVP: Human-Only Rooms
Core features that ship in 90 days:
Vault-only access.
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