Twitter gets its first offer to buy Vine, from Pornhub

Vine used to have a big problem with people posting NSFW videos, so this offer does make sense

As soon as Twitter made the surprise announcement on Thursday that it was getting rid of video creation app Vine, it was obvious that someone would want to buy it. Sure, Vine may have sputtered against competition from Instagram and Snapchat, but there is still some value there, but it was still a top 100 on iOS until last year. There's value there for someone. 

It actually didn't take long for Twitter to receive its first solicitation for Vine, and you'll never guess who wants it.

"We figure since Twitter has dropped (Vine) and is having significant layoffs, that you and your stakeholders could benefit from a cash infusion from the sale of Vine. Not to mention we would be saving Vine gems like 'Damn Daniel,' 'Awkward Puppets' and many more," Pornhub VP Corey Price wrote in a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, the company has confirmed to VatorNews.

Vine would be a good fit because “porn in six seconds is more than enough time for most people to enjoy themselves," he said. 

Ok, then.

This offer actually make a lot of sense for Vine, if you consider its history.  One of the inherent problems with giving people the chance to make videos is that they will, inevitably, turn the camera on themselves without any clothes on. It's human nature, and Vine was no exception to this.

Right after Vine debuted, people started putting up videos of themselves naked, either alone or with other people. In a really embarrassing move for Twitter, one pornographic video was even accidentally chosen as one of Vine's editor picks.

Twitter became aware of the problem quickly, and tried to weed out inappropriate videos by restricting a number of hashtags, including #porn,  #sex, #boobs, and #booty.

In fact, it was such a big issue that, only a month after Twitter released Vine, it was forced to raise the age restriction for the app from 12 to 17, because of the number of people using the app for inappropriate means.

Porn videos were officially banned from Vine in 2014, though it did continue to allow nudity in certain instances, like in a documentary context, such as videos of nude protestors, and nudity in an artistic context, like nude modeling in an art class. 

While some might think that Pornhub is joking, a spokesperson for the company assured me that the offer was legitimate, and that it has already made an offer to Twitter. 

"We cannot disclose financials but I can say the offer was substantial enough to make Jack seriously consider it," he said.

If this deal were to happen, becoming part of a porn site would kind of be like taking Vine back to its roots. That's what Price meant when he said he would "restore Vine to Its NSFW glory."

At least one person would no doubt be pretty upset if such a deal were to go through: Vine co-founder Russ Yusupov. He was the last of the three co-founders to leave Twitter, after Dom Hofmannand Colin Kroll left in 2014, when was laid off in 2015 as part of the eight percent of Twitter employees who were let go last year. 

Yusupov let his feelings about Twitter, and the news that Vine would be shutting down, well known.

Don’t sell your company!

— Rus (@rus) October 27, 2016

While he's obviously not happy about his app being shut down, I doubt that a sale to Pornhub would make him feel any better. 

It's unknown right now if Twitter has received any other offers to buy Vine. A spokesperson for Twitter had no comment.