Snapchat and Instagram drop Giphy for allowing racist GIFs
Snapchat and Instagram drop Giphy for allowing racist GIFs

2025-04-27 01:44:51

UPDATE: March 10, 2018, 2:25 p.m. EST Giphy released a statement to Mashable apologizing for the offensive GIF. The story has been updated with the statement below.

Giphy is in hot water with Snapchat and Instagram after people spotted a racist and hateful GIF when searching for GIFs to use on the platforms.

SEE ALSO: Making GIFs just got way easier thanks to Google's keyboard app

Both social media platforms removed their Giphy integrations after learning of the issue, TechCrunchreported Friday. The offending GIF appears to have been removed by Giphy, but Instagram and Snapchat have yet to bring back their Giphy features.

The GIF in question makes an offensive statement about race-based crimes, and it prominently features the N-word. There's nothing questionable about its intent; it is overtly racist.

Twitter user Lyauna Augmon said she searched "crime" in Instagram's Giphy feature and the above GIF came up as a suggestion. The same GIF also appeared as a suggestion in Snapchat's Giphy feature.

In a statement to TechCrunch, Snapchat said it removed Giphy after it heard about the problem.

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"As soon as we were made aware, we removed the GIF and have disabled Giphy until we can be sure that this won’t happen again ... while we wait for Giphy’s team to take a look at it," Snapchat said.

Instagram similarly disabled Giphy after hearing about the hateful GIF.

"This type of content has no place on Instagram," Instagram told TechCrunch. "We have stopped our integration with Giphy as they investigate the issue."

Giphy itself apologized for the offensive GIF in a statement provided to Mashable and said it would be performing extra moderation for its library of GIFs. The GIF itself slipped through the cracks of its usual moderation due to a bug which Giphy said it has has since fixed.

"A user discovered an offensive GIF sticker in our library, and we immediately removed it per our content guidelines," Giphy said in a statement. "After investigation of the incident, this sticker was available due to a bug in our content moderation filters specifically affecting GIF stickers. We have fixed the bug and have re-moderated all of the GIF stickers in our library. The Giphy staff is also further reviewing every GIF sticker by hand and should be finished shortly."

"We take full responsibility for these recent events and sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended," Giphy added.

Giphy is a very new addition to both social media platforms. Instagram added the feature in January and Snapchat only just partnered with Giphy in February, so in the latter case it wasn't even available for a full month before it was disabled.


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