Snapchat and Instagram have recently removed its Giphy feature from their platforms.
The move was a result of a racist GIF appearing in its search results after a user typed the word “crime.” The picture in question uses the N-word and includes a picture of a monkey.
Snapchat told TechCrunch that, “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.” Meanwhile, Instagram told Tech Crunch that, “This type of content has no place on Instagram. We have stopped our integration with Giphy as they investigate the issue.”
Giphy responded by issuing the following statement:
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.
Both Snapchat and Instagram have recently integrated the Giphy functionality into their applications for users looking to add more creativity to their stories and social media posts.
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