Instagram and Snapchat Remove Giphy Service
If you're wondering why you don't see the recently added Giphy feature on Instagram Stories or Snapchat, it's because the two social media services removed it after an extremely racist gif was spotted in the gif library.
As reported by TechCrunch, both Instagram and Snapchat temporarily removed the Giphy gif sticker feature after it appeared on both apps, signaling it was a problem with Giphy. The offensive gif shows the phrase, "N****r Crime Death Counter – Keep Cranking Bonzo, the Numbers Just Keep on Climbing!" alongside a number ticker and a white gameshow-esque announcer. Users noticed the racial slur and tweeted screenshots of it, tagging Instagram. Warning: The image below contains disturbing content.
A spokesperson from Snapchat told TechCrunch that Snapchat was very sorry for the offensive error. "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." They added that all gifs that appear on Snapchat are meant to be "rated PG" and be suitable for the app's 13-and-up users.
Giphy also gave a statement to TechCrunch, apologizing for allowing the gif to appear on its service:
"A user discovered an offensive GIF sticker in our library, and we immediately removed it per our content guidelines.
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.”
Cosmopolitan.com has reached out to Instagram for comment and will update this story as needed.
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