How Social Media Platforms Use Regulation To Stifle Competition

Vine Was Chaos. That’s Why It Worked.

What happens when you take Larry King’s studio, a crack production team, improv comedy, internet chaos, and the earliest generation of Vine creators? You got Behind The Vine. Eric Artell, the former host of Behind the Vine, joins Rabble for a deep dive into the golden age of Vine, the birth of creator culture, and the internet before every platform became an engagement machine. From interviewing rising Vine stars to witnessing the mental health realities behind online fame, Eric shares stories from one of social media’s weirdest and most influential eras. But most importantly: will we perhaps get a “Behind Divine” sequel?  In this episode:  * 07:39 How “Behind The Vine” captured a generation of creators before influencers became an industry * 15:35 Why authenticity still beats polished content, even in an algorithm-driven internet * 23:39 What happened to Vine stars after the app disappeared, and how internet fame changed their lives * 31:55 Can Divine bring back the creativity and community that made Vine special? * 33:58 Why audiences connect more deeply with creators who feel human instead of optimized * 35:47 The missing ingredient in today’s content economy: genuine human connection * 40:40 The mental health realities creators face behind the pressure of constant visibility * 46:11 Why social media platforms need stronger protections and healthier spaces for younger users * 51:34 How Vine went from internet phenomenon to shutdown cautionary tale almost overnight * 56:29 The future of content creation, creator ownership, and building platforms beyond the algorithm Eric’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericartell/ [https://www.instagram.com/ericartell/] Behind The Vine on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCauu8QfE8Z4uvkTS2l9vNw [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCauu8QfE8Z4uvkTS2l9vNw]  NerdHQ helps provide therapy for those who can’t afford it: https://nerdhq.org/ [https://nerdhq.org/]  80-year Harvard mental health study showing that community leads to happier lives: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/ [https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/04/over-nearly-80-years-harvard-study-has-been-showing-how-to-live-a-healthy-and-happy-life/] Learn more about Divine: https://about.divine.video/ [https://about.divine.video/]  And download Divine in the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/divine-video/id6747959501 [https://apps.apple.com/us/app/divine-video/id6747959501] or Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.openvine.app [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.openvine.app]

OG Viner on How the Creator Economy is Broken

He hit a million followers on Vine before “creator” was even a job title. Now Reggie Couz (an OG Viner) sits down with Rabble to answer the question that haunts every creator: Wwhat happens when the platform you built your career on decides it doesn’t need you anymore? From mustaches and wigs in his mom’s New Jersey house to Vine Meetups in LA, Reggie traces how he became an internet star and why he’s now leaning in on decentralization and the revival of 6-second looping videos on Divine. It’s a conversation about creativity, community, ownership, and refusing to keep renting your own followers back from Big Tech. In this episode Chapters * 4:05 How Reggie talked his mom into taking a “gap year” that became his life to chase six-second fame—and hit a million followers before that year was up * 11:11 Why Vine was six seconds (hint: it was a phone limitation, not a creative choice) * 12:22 The secret history of how platforms actually get built—Twitter from protest text messages, Instagram from an abandoned check-in game, Vine from “what can we do with video?” * 15:38 The Hollywood actors’ union as a blueprint for creator solidarity * 24:09 Divine: rebuilding Vine on an open, decentralized protocol where you own your identity, your audience, and your work * 26:45 What “enshittification” really means, and why creators are the value platforms keep extracting * 41:43 What social media should look like in 2026 — and how to “just get weird again”

How Social Media Platforms Use Regulation To Stifle Competition

Are we regulating the wrong tech problems? Many opponents of Big Tech cheered recent lawsuits that found Meta and YouTube liable for violating consumer protection laws and designing their products to addict kids and teens. But in the battle over user safety, is free expression going to end up as a casualty? In this episode of Revolution.Social, Rabble (Twitter’s first employee) sits down with two influential voices in digital media: Mike McCue (CEO of Flipboard) and Mike Masnick (Founder of Techdirt). McCue and Masnick explain why social media regulations could have unintended consequences. Masnick cites a 2016 carveout to Section 230 of America's Communications Decency Act, known as FOSTA-SESTA, that was supposed to crack down on online sex trafficking. In reality, it made it harder for police to track down sex traffickers, and pushed sex workers into taking more dangerous offline work. Today on the podcast: - Why is Section 230 — which provides limited immunity to online platforms for content posted by their users — the most misunderstood law on the internet? - Could regulations aimed at punishing Meta actually kill off its competitors? - And should governments be responsible for checking the power of AI giants? Plus: Why the right to exit has prevented Gmail from becoming "enshittified." Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 2:45 Section 230 and Regulatory Moats 7:10 The History of Moral Panics and Technology 10:25 From AOL Centralization to the Open Web 15:26 The Hidden Costs of Losing Section 230 22:17 GDPR and Unintended Consequences 27:36 Lessons from the Meta Privacy and Safety Trials 33:24 Internal Research Is Not a Scandal 38:22 How Content Moderation Gets Weaponized 45:31 The Case for Profile Portability 53:21 Regulating Incentives vs. Mandates 1:03:56 AI Regulation and the Risk of New Walled Gardens 1:10:38 Replicating the Open Web's Success Flipboard Techdirt Follow Rabble on Bluesky Follow the podcast This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm. Alice Chan, Flock Marketing, is our exec producer. To learn more about Rabble’s Social Media Bill of Rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/

Can We Bring Vine Back From the Dead?

Is 2026 the new 2016? Back then, we didn't know that Facebook could win or lose elections, and become weaponized, that Gamergate-style harassment would take over politics, or that we were about to lose the creative, absurd, and sometimes brilliant short-form video platform Vine. Here's the good news: We're going to try to recapture the magic of Vine. Rabble’s new app, Divine, is available now at Divine.video and the links below. To celebrate Divine's launch, we brought back two of our favorite podcast guests: journalist & founder of User Mag, Taylor Lorenz; and the host of the podcast "There Are No Girls on the Internet," Bridget Todd. They talk with Rabble about the rise of Vine, why it failed as a business and got shut down by Twitter, and how that rise & fall rippled throughout the creator economy. Taylor & Bridget have spent years documenting the evolution of social platforms from the inside out, and Rabble adds some behind the scenes color about the big brains and egos at Twitter. They also talk about what makes Divine different from Vine and existing apps like TikTok and Snapchat. Here's to a joyful, creative, open internet. Join us on Divine! The link to download the app is below. Download the app: App Store Google Play ZapStore Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:42 The Rise and Impact of Vine 04:05 Simplicity and the Outward-Facing Camera 07:02 Evolution of the Proto-Influencer 11:27 Black Culture and Subverting Power Dynamics 15:08 Curation vs Algorithmic Feeds 20:21 Why Vine Collapsed 23:27 The Culture Gap Between Tech and Creators 28:13 Competition and the Birth of TikTok 33:14 Hope and the Future of Social Media 38:42 Decentralization and User Control 50:26 Bridging Humanity and Technology Taylor’s Substack, User Mag Her podcast, “Power User” Bridget’s Instagram Her podcast, “There Are No Girls on the Internet” Follow Rabble on Bluesky Follow the podcast This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing. To learn more about Rabble’s Social Media Bill of Rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/

Why the Algorithm Loves a Villain, And How to Beat It

When the internet is full of distortions, fake news, and AI-generated slop, how can facts and journalism rise to the top? Former BBC and Vice journalist Sophia Smith Galer has one possible way to beat the misinformation and exploitation. Her app Sophiana writes "algorithm-ready" video scripts for journalists and experts, to cut through the noise and help them go viral. In this episode of Revolution.Social, Rabble (Twitter’s first employee) sits down with Sophia to talk about her reporting on our broken digital discourse, as well as her new book "How to Kill a Language: Power, Resistance, and the Race to Save Our Words.” Today on the podcast, Sophia and Rabble explore: - How bad actors manipulate our feeds - The transition from traditional newsrooms to video journalism on TikTok - The decline of language diversity around the world due to "linguicide" Plus: What happened when Sophia discovered an AI-generated "autobiography" of herself. Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 3:53 Gaming the Algorithm and Content Moderation 9:39 Sophia's AI-Hallucinated Biography 13:12 From BBC News to Independent Journalism 16:27 Building Sophiana: AI Tools for Journalists 19:13 Longform Books vs. Short-Form Video 24:00 Platform Lock-in and Substack 26:12 Instagram and the Myth of "Exposure" 28:29 Labor Rights and Industry Chaos 32:05 How to Kill a Language 37:32 Saving Endangered Languages in California 40:21 Multilingualism and Cultural Identity Sophia’s book, “How to Kill a Language” Her Instagram Sophiana Follow Rabble on Bluesky Follow the podcast This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm, and executive produced by Alice Chan from Flock Marketing. To learn more about Rabble’s Social Media Bill of Rights, and sign up for our newsletter, visit https://revolution.social/