So tiktok has basically become a data collector for ICE, if you still have tiktok, delete it now.
Edit to add screenshots. This is extremely dangerous considering what happened with tiktok last year and the rise in ID verifications under the guise of age verifications.
Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your family.
IF YOU ARE DELETING TIKTOK, PLEASE DELETE LEMON8 AND CAPCUT
Lemon8 and Capcut are under the same ownership umbrella in the US.
If you are looking for alternatives, do not use DeVine. DeVine has an anti AI policy, but that is because the creators are feeding the content posted to DeVine into their own AI.
Okay so there's a lot of confusion about DiVine and its goals and my last post on the subject wasn't sufficiently researched, so let me go ahead and give a brief summary of what we know so far.
TL;DR: While there is not enough information to draw any conclusions one way or another, the app is Not being run by billionare asshole Jack Dorsey, the AI in its coding isn't generative AI, and person actually making it has been doing online activism since the 90s and seems sincere.
My current opinion, which you can consider or discard based on the evidence I've collected, is that this is not a con, and the motives of its founder are sincere. however, I do think there is a serious risk the people funding it intend for its data to be used for AI scraping, and I don't know that it's goals are realistic. The app will probably not be AI free even if the creator intends it to be, because it is hard to screen for that shit, and it will eventually be scraped, because so will everything on the internet.
I do however think it'll be just as safe to use as any other website, and at a certain point I need to be at peace and surrender to the internet as it is if I want to remain sane. This is simply the way things are. Proceed with caution, consider the available information, and decide for yourself how you are comfortable with your content being used. You aren't stupid or naive for hoping that this will work out, because hope is never stupid, but take the time to consider the risks that your face could be used in a generative data set, and if you are at special risk— like if you are a domestic violence victim, have been stalked, are in witness protection— do not proceed. I love you. Information under cut.
DiVine is a reboot of Vine that is being done by a company called Rabble, founded by a person named Evan Henshaw Plath.(1)(they/them, on the record-- Rabble is One Person, but Evan's pronouns are they/them) It is unaffiliated with the original Vine but is in possession of its video archive at the time it went down, and will be restoring those videos to the web, but will allow creators to request their videos be removed. (via DMCA takedowns: this is not like. a nice feature, this is a legal obligation) It has been announced that the new Vine will be AI free, but how genuine that aim is been under very heavy debate.
DiVine is being funded by a nonprofit called AndOtherStuff, with the help of Jack Dorsey, which also works with an protocol called Nostr, which has AI integration. so while DiVine may be sincere in its goal to have only human content, its creator is not anti AI(2), and the app itself is built with a protocol that uses AI in its coding (claude, evidently? i've been told it's in their github). The creator of DiVine has stated that they will not be selling people's data for AI training purposes. (You do not have to believe them, but its worth noting that they have flatly denied this) Nostr also is not a generative AI protocol. I do not fully pretend to understand what this means, but essentially it seems to work on controlling datasets instead of the usual AI approach of scraping everything everywhere. here is the information on Nostr if anyone is inclined to explain what the hell it means to me.
Update: someone has explained what it means to me. Nostr is not an AI, it is a marketplace that works WITH AI, essentially connecting people who want to create AI with datasets. So while AndOtherStuff has its fingers in the AI marketplace, they are not actually doing AI training (also, they're funding DiVine, but they're not the developers, so this isn't even entirely relevant.)
The speculation on the subject has been driven by several points.
1. There is not a reliable way, at present, to check for AI generated video, so even if their goals are sincere, it's difficult to say if they're enforceable
2. Shortform video is an ideal training set for video AI, so some have pointed out that this is awfully convenient
3. AndOtherStuff and the DeVine app are funded heavily by Jack Dorsey, a friend of Elon Musk's and known bastard, and guy who is a big proponent of AI. However, despite a lot of sources attributing this to him, their FAQ says he has no ownership stake, he's not the founder, he just gave them money.
I wanted to combine all this here because currently a lot of the posts going around don't give a full rundown of the information, or are those net-zero reblogs that start with someone being happy about Vine getting rebooted and then dunked into oblivion. This is not currently extremely clear cut, and no one is stupid for having different opinions on it, for being excited or being concerned. Some people in the reblogs of my last post have also pointed out that moderation is not yet in place on the web version of DiVine, so if you use it, please use it with caution, I've heard that people have encountered suicide baiting. Update: they found the bugs and took the app down for a while to make sure it's safe.
Tumblr loves eating links more than anything else in the world so I am going to make this post and then go back and edit links in so if you need sources and there aren't any, click back to the OP, they'll be there momentarily. I'm proud of you for checking your information. I love you. However, if you just wanted the summary, that's fair too, because the modern age is an exhausting hellscape of information overload. When I have more information I will edit it in, and I appreciate respectful debate or people telling me what I missed, because I am by no means an expert on this subject, and only felt the need to weigh in because I felt some of the PSA posts were cruel. Be safe out there
I am not one to suck a tech bro's dick, but I did check out rabble to try to see if I could find anything shady on them. they were involved in the initial founding of twitter, but they left the company (and eventually the site entirely) and here are some of their other tweets
So like. This person does not seem to be especially performative in their activism.
(2) I have scraped through Rabble's bluesky for their statements on AI, and most of what i've found is ambivalence. If you scroll below the posts about Divine not using AI you find a mixture of posts about using copilot for coding, resistance to data center spending on AI, and discussion of the realities of AI job replacement. They have not said anything especially For or Against AI either way, seems to just have a techie's attitude that AI is Here and Inevitable, but does seem to be genuinely trying to work ethics within it. I have seen no evidence that they are insincere in their goals.
