Elon Musk brings back Vine archive through X and Grok AI integration
In a recent post on X, Musk revealed: 'We recently found the Vine video archive (thought it had been deleted) and are working on restoring user access, so you can post them if you want.'
Vine, which Twitter acquired in 2012 for $30 million, became a cultural landmark with its six-second videos that launched viral trends and online careers. The platform shut down in 2017 due to stiff competition and internal struggles.
Now, Musk—who took over Twitter and rebranded it as X in 2022—is reviving interest by reintroducing Vine content, not as a standalone app, but as part of the broader X ecosystem.
The revival is tied to Grok, Musk's AI chatbot, with which users can generate and post videos.
Vine's original popularity stemmed from its brief, creative clips and influential creators like Logan and Jake Paul. Despite its decline, the platform's cultural legacy remains strong among millennials and Gen Z. Musk's integration of Vine videos into X via Grok could tap into that nostalgia while promoting new AI capabilities.
While some view the move as a marketing push for Grok, the restored access to iconic Vine content may offer users a trip down memory lane.
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Express Tribune
7 hours ago
- Express Tribune
‘Parwarish' seats parents and children at the same table
Wali wants to make music, but his father sends him to medical school. Maya wants to become a doctor, but her father forces her to get engaged to a man she has met only once. Aania wants to end her life because no one hears her when she says she is tired. These characters are the main Gen-Z ensemble of ARY's Parwarish, but off-screen they are all of us. Directed by Meesam Naqvi for Big Bang Entertainment, the show follows a joint-family home shared by two brothers, Jahangir and Suleiman. Jahangir (Noman Ejaz), rash and stern, comes back from the US with his wife Mahnoor (Sawera Nadeem) and their kids, Wali (Samar Jafri) and Aania (Nooray Zeeshan). They find it hard to live by the ways of a tight-knit, middle-class life in Pakistan. Suleiman (Saad Zameer), calm and soft, stays in the same house with his wife Panah (Saman Ansari) and their kids, Sameer (Abul Hasan) and Amal (Reham Rafiq), who are all too familiar with this life – including the unique problems that come with living in it. In the sub plot, sisters Maya (Aina Asif) and Mashal (Haleema Ali) live with a strict father who makes each call for them; until Maya and Wali, both in med school, develop a relationship. What follows shows what it means to grow up in a culture shaped by generational differences. That is the distance Parwarish has captured. Every week since it first aired on April 7th, the TV serial has given young twenty-something Gen-Zs in Pakistan a version of themselves that is not reverse-engineered to be 'relatable'. (Exhibit A: we all remember when Abubakr Shak's painful 'Sorry my foot!' hit our timelines). At the same time, it has given the 50 plus Gen X parents, raised in a much stricter 'don't ask, just do what you are told' culture, the chance to look inwards with more honesty. In doing so, the show brought two generations closer, giving them the chance to finally talk. In Episode 29, Maya hugs her father Shaheer for the first time. She apologizes for insisting on meeting Wali, bracing for the rejection that has always followed. But for once, Shaheer – a man who has spent the entire show clinging to the idea of family honor – softens. He tells her they will figure it out. Later that night, he confesses to his wife that while they were raised to fear dishonor, refusing to support Maya might mean losing her entirely. This is a moment for catharsis for both and a major turning point in the story. Muhammad, 26, had a similar experience, as he entered the room to his father watching the scene where Maya's mother, Saadia, allows her to meet Wali. 'It switched something in me,' he said. 'He didn't say anything but somehow watching that made it easier for me to blurt it out. I told him about my relationship right then.' Still, Parwarish is not the first TV drama to tackle the Gen Z experience. College Gate (2023), Judwaa (2024), and Midsummer Chaos (2021) tried, but fell short because their main focus was on appearance and not lived struggles. These characters might have looked like Gen Z and talked like them, but that was all. 'I don't really watch Pakistani dramas because they only show Gen Z as brats,' Muhammad said. 'It also always feels like the parents and kids are constantly at odds with each other which is so boring to watch.' And that is what Parwarish has done differently. Just like the children, it has shown parents in shades of grey, as works in progress too – anxious like Parna, second-guessing like Suleiman and even harsh like Jahangir. But they are trying. Watching the drama made me pause and reflect,' said Irum, 52, mother of two. 'Care and control are not the same. Sometimes, in trying to protect our children, we end up owning their choices. I didn't realise how deeply that can affect them until I saw it play out on screen specially when Aania hurt herself. It made me think about how heavy things can feel for our children when we don't listen.' It is a realization that confirms what Dr. Shelina Bhamani, Assistant Professor and Youth Specialist at the Aga Khan University, has often seen. 'In our culture, parental control is mistaken as love,' said Dr. Bhamani, in conversation with The Express Tribune Life & Style. 'Parents think, if I can control you, if I don't let you go out with your friends or sit in your room alone, that is love.' This is precisely the difference that drives Jahangir's story throughout the show. He cannot separate his role as a father from that of a patriarch. For him, his son is not a person in his own right, but rather an extension of his own reputation. So, when Wali is adamant on pursuing music full-time, it offends Jahangir so deeply that he is willing to let his son sleep on the streets rather than accept his choices. 'This is where individual identity is compromised for family honor,' said Dr. Shelina. It is not just Wali's autonomy that is denied, Maya's love for Wali is also not seen as a relationship between two consenting young adults, but rather as a threat to her family's image. When their relationship is exposed, it is Maya who pays the greater price. Her engagement is called off, her father pulls her out of university, and he even storms into Wali's house to confront him in front of his entire family. Despite that, Parwarish does not reduce Maya's relationship to scandal. Instead, it becomes the heart of the show. 'The relationships were the most emotional part to watch,' said Mariya, 19. 'Because they were not shown as shameful but something that is a natural part of growing up. Even Maya's parents eventually come around, and it's shown as healthy, not rebellious. That felt rare.' This progressive depiction has still been criticized. Commentators online have said that the show overemphasises on teenage freedom and relationships. To them, it gives too much space to feelings that should be discouraged or at the very least, managed. 'There are many lessons and goals to teach your children other than falling in love. This is not the age for that and should not be portrayed on television.' said Kiran Naz, a right-wing conservative anchor on SAMAA TV, in her TikTok review. Over five hundred comments flooded in agreement. But this is simply reality that Parwarish reflects. Teenage love is messy, all consuming and deeply visible in this culture too. The creators just make a clear effort to address that in a practical way rather than looking the other way. In Episode 32, Maya, who has spent the last three episodes doing nothing but talking to Wali and fixing his problems, misses her mock exams. She breaks down, devastated, as she realizes she is losing herself in the relationship. She draws a healthy line with Wali, and they agree to step back so she can focus on her studies. 'What critics often overlook is the media's pedagogical potential,' said Shelina Bhamani. 'Media is a teacher and it can teach parenting to a great extent. Many parents could see themselves on the screen when this drama was projected. They could see their kids, they could see their social situations. So, in that way it is brilliant.' Writer Kiran Siddiqui echoed this in an interview with The Express Tribune Life & Style, saying, 'By the end it came to a point that people understand the complexity of life, the complexity of human nature, the complexity of a human brain and how eras or generational differences can become a factor that even the most basic emotion of an individual can be misread." It is Suleiman's character that brings this complexity to life. He meets each person where they are – whether it's standing by his son Sameer's decision to become a gamer, even after he's caught at a drug party, or swallowing his pride to apologize to his brother only because his aging father asked him to. This, ultimately, is where Parwarish leaves its deepest mark. In a culture where the emotional vocabulary between generations is such a mess, it shows us that children and parents can talk to each other and that authority and adolescence can sit across from each other at the dinner table. It helps young people make sense of their silence and forgive parents for all that they could not be. As Kiran Siddiqui said, 'Everybody has their own experiences with their family members and friends. If it can happen somewhere that we get to understand each other's struggles, there can be a path of forgiveness.' And that might just be the kind of parwarish we all need. Parwarish airs every Monday and Tuesday on ARY. The last episode is set to air on August 11th, 2025.
Business Recorder
13 hours ago
- Business Recorder
Musk vs. Modi: Inside the battle over India's internet censorship
BENGALURU/NEW DELHI: In January, an old post on Elon Musk's social media platform, X, became a concern for police in the Indian city of Satara. Written in 2023, the short message from an account with a few hundred followers described a senior ruling-party politician as 'useless'. 'This post and content are likely to create serious communal tension,' inspector Jitendra Shahane wrote in a content-removal notice marked 'CONFIDENTIAL' and addressed to X. The post, which remains online, is among hundreds cited by X in a lawsuit it filed in March against India's government, challenging a sweeping crackdown on social media content by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration. Since 2023, India has ramped up efforts to police the internet by allowing many more officials to file takedown orders and to submit them directly to tech firms through a government website launched in October. X argues India's actions are illegal and unconstitutional, and that they trample free speech by empowering scores of government agencies and thousands of police to suppress legitimate criticism of public officials. India contends in court documents that its approach tackles a proliferation of unlawful content and ensures accountability online. It says many tech companies, including Meta and Alphabet's Google, support its actions. Both companies declined to comment for this story. Musk, who calls himself a free-speech absolutist, has clashed with authorities in the United States, Brazil, Australia and elsewhere over compliance and takedown demands. Musk says he will visit India after talk with Modi But as regulators globally weigh free-speech protections against concerns about harmful content, Musk's case against Modi's government in the Karnataka High Court targets the entire basis for tightened internet censorship in India, one of X's biggest user bases. Musk said in 2023 that the South Asian nation had 'more promise than any large country in the world' and that Modi had pushed him to invest there. This account of the behind-the-scenes battle between the world's richest person and authorities in the world's most populous country is based on a Reuters review of 2,500 pages of non-public legal filings and interviews with seven police officers involved in content-removal requests. It reveals the workings of a takedown system shrouded in secrecy, some Indian officials' ire over 'illegal' material on X, and the broad spectrum of content that police and other agencies have sought to censor. While the takedown orders include many that sought to counter misinformation, they also encompass directives by Modi's administration to remove news about a deadly stampede, and demands from state police to scrub cartoons that depicted the prime minister in an unfavourable light or mocked local politicians, the filings show. X didn't respond to Reuters questions about the case, while India's IT ministry declined to comment because the matter was before the court. Modi's office and his home ministry didn't respond to questions. There have been no immediate signs of souring personal relations between Musk and Modi, who have enjoyed a warm public rapport. But the showdown comes as the South African-born entrepreneur, whose business empire includes EV maker Tesla and satellite internet provider Starlink, gears up to expand both ventures in India. Even supporters of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have faced scrutiny of their online musings from police officials newly empowered by the IT ministry to target social media activity. Koustav Bagchi, a lawyer and BJP member, posted an image on X in March that depicted a rival, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, in an astronaut suit. State police issued a takedown notice, citing 'risks to public safety and national security'. India's Modi meets Trump, Musk as tariff pressure Bagchi told Reuters the post, which is still online, was 'light-hearted' and that he wasn't aware of the takedown order. The chief minister's office and state police didn't respond to Reuters queries. Of the earlier 2023 post, Shahane, the Satara police officer, told Reuters he couldn't recall the takedown order, but said police sometimes proactively ask platforms to block offensive viral content. 'Censorship portal' For years, only India's IT and Information & Broadcasting ministries could order content removal, and only for threats to sovereignty, defense, security, foreign relations, public order, or incitement. Some 99 officials across India could recommend takedowns, but the ministries had the final say. While that mechanism remains in place, Modi's IT ministry in 2023 empowered all federal and state agencies and police to issue takedown notices for 'any information which is prohibited under any law'. They could do so under existing legal provisions, the ministry said in a directive, citing the need for 'effective' content removal. Companies that fail to comply can lose immunity for user content, making them liable for the same penalties a user might face - which could vary greatly depending on the specific material posted. Modi's government went a step further in October 2024. It launched a website called Sahyog - Hindi for collaboration - to 'facilitate' the issuance of takedown notices, and asked Indian officials and social media firms to get on board, memos contained in court papers show. X didn't join Sahyog, which it has called a 'censorship portal', and sued the government earlier this year, challenging the legal basis for both the new website and the IT ministry's 2023 directive. In a June 24 filing, X said some of the blocking orders issued by officials 'target content involving satire or criticism of the ruling government, and show a pattern of abuse of authority to suppress free speech.' Some free-speech advocates have criticised the government's stricter takedown regime, saying it is designed to stifle dissent. 'Can a claim that some content is unlawful be termed as indeed unlawful merely because the government claims so?' said Subramaniam Vincent, director of journalism and media ethics at Santa Clara University's Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. 'The executive branch cannot be both the arbiter of legality of media content, and the issuer of takedown notices.' Red dinosaur Court filings reviewed by Reuters show federal and state agencies ordered X to remove around 1,400 posts or accounts between March 2024 and June 2025. More than 70% of these removal notices were issued by the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, which developed the Sahyog website. The agency is within the home ministry, which is headed by Modi aide Amit Shah, a powerful figure in the ruling BJP. To counter X in court, India's government filed a 92-page report drafted by the cybercrime unit to show X is 'hosting illegal content'. The unit analysed nearly 300 posts it deemed unlawful, including misinformation, hoaxes, and child sexual-abuse material. X serves as a vehicle for 'spreading hate and division' that threatens social harmony, while 'fake news' on the platform has sparked unspecified law-and-order issues, the agency said in the report. The government's response to X's lawsuit highlighted examples of misinformation. In January, the cybercrime unit asked X to remove three posts containing what officials said were fabricated images that portrayed Shah's son, International Cricket Council chairman Jay Shah, 'in a derogatory manner' alongside a bikini-clad woman. The posts 'dishonour prominent office bearers and VIPs', the notices said. Two of those posts remain online. Jay Shah didn't respond to Reuters queries. Other directives went beyond targeting fake news. X told the court India's railways ministry has been issuing orders to censor press reports about matters of public interest. These included February directives seeking the removal of posts by some media outlets, including two by Adani Group's NDTV, that contained news coverage of stampede at New Delhi's biggest railway station that left 18 dead. The NDTV posts are still online. NDTV didn't respond to Reuters queries and the railways ministry declined to comment. In April, police in Chennai asked X to remove many 'deeply offensive' and 'provocative' posts, including a now-inaccessible cartoon featuring a red dinosaur labelled 'inflation', which portrayed Modi and the chief minister of Tamil Nadu state as struggling to control prices. The same month, police demanded the removal of another cartoon that mocked the state government's lack of preparedness for floods by showing a boat with holes. X told the judge the cartoon was posted in November, and it could not 'incite political tensions' several months later, as the Chennai police asserted. The post remains online. The state government didn't respond to a request for comment. When Reuters visited the Chennai cybercrime police station that issued these directives, Deputy Commissioner B. Geetha criticised X for seldom acting on takedown requests. X does not 'fully grasp the cultural sensitivities', she said. 'What may be acceptable in some countries can be considered taboo in India.'
Business Recorder
a day ago
- Business Recorder
Abu Dhabi's MGX could raise up to $25bn for AI fund, Bloomberg News says
Abu Dhabi-based MGX is considering plans to raise as much as $25 billion in third-party capital as the investment group looks to ramp up its artificial intelligence holdings, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. MGX declined to comment on the report and Reuters could not immediately verify it. Company executives are weighing raising money from financial and strategic investors in Abu Dhabi and beyond, but Mubadala Investment Co and AI firm G42 will remain MGX's main backers, the report said. UAE and US agree on path for Abu Dhabi to buy most advanced AI chips, Trump says No final decisions have been made, according to the report. MGX, which has invested in OpenAI and Elon Musk's xAI, is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser and a brother of UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. The Financial Times reported last week that French AI startup Mistral is in talks with MGX and other investors to raise $1 billion at a valuation of $10 billion.
