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

By Jason Hahn 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.”

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.

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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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