After much backlash, Instagram and Snapchat remove racist GIF

Earlier this year, biggest social media apps Instagram and Snapchat introduced a Giphy GIFs feature for Stories, which they recently had to remove because of users’ complaints after seeing an extremely racist GIF as an option to add to their images.

The GIF that caused an uproar on social media appeared when the user typed in 'crime' and referred to a ‘death counter’ while also using a racial slur. After been discovered, users started protesting and asked the sites to remove it, and as soon as the companies discovered about the racial slur, they immediately took the feature down. It was first spotted on Snapchat and later on Instagram.

Feeling sorry about the act, Snapchat spokesperson assured that all the GIFs in the app are ‘rated PG’ and suitable for 13-and-up teens. Snapchat confirmed Tech Crunch, “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.”

In a turn of events, Snapchat copies Instagram’s feature

Later, the same GIF was spotted on Instagram, which pointed out that Giphy was at fault, not the apps. Assuring that the GIF is no longer available, an Instagram spokesperson said, “This type of content has no place on Instagram. We have stopped our integration with Giphy as they investigate the issue.”

Moreover, when questioned the GIF and animated stickers’ source, Giphy, the representative claimed that it was due to a bug that let the offensive GIF through. They immediately took down the GIF after its discovery since it violated their 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,” the Giphy spokesperson continued.