Vine rolls out Vine Kids, a standalone app just for children

By Jason Hahn Published February 1, 2015

Vine Kids — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Last March, Vine took a stand against six-second porn on its platform. Now the company is taking another step toward making its video service friendly for all ages with the debut of Vine Kids.

As a gesture to the “parents, siblings and others” who told the company how much kids adore the mini-video platform, Twitter-owned Vine has rolled out an app called Vine Kids. “Through adorable animated characters, kids can watch videos that are appropriate for a young audience,” according to the blog post announcing the new app. “Swiping right or left shows a new Vine, and you can tap the screen to hear quirky sounds.”

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The app, which is available for iOS devices (no word on future availability on Android or Windows Phone), is the result of a Vine employee expressing his wish for a separate kid-friendly Vine app for his 2-year-old daughter. This conversation occurred during Twitter’s Hack Week, so two colleagues decided to spend time building Vine Kids. The kid-friendly version of Vine does not require an account to use.

A recent report from Common Sense Media found that 75 percent of children in the U.S. ages 0-8 have access to mobile devices, up from 52 percent two years ago. The report also found that 7 percent have their own tablets.

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Jason Hahn is a part-time freelance writer based in New Jersey. He earned his master's degree in journalism at Northwestern…

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