Both Instagram and Snapchat have taken steps to purge racist content from their platforms by temporarily removing their Giphy integration. This was after users criticized the tech giants for allowing a racist Gif to be available in their libraries. The controversial GIF includes a Racial Slur. The slur forms the first word in a GIF text that reads “N---- Crime Death Counter – Keep Cranking Bonzo, the Number Just Keep on Climbing!” The GIF caused controversy online after a few users started posting about it.
“[T]o be looped in a GIF, to be put on display as ‘animated’ at the behest of audiences,” as Monica Torres describes for Real Life, is an act with racial history and meaning.
These GIFs often enact fantasies of black women as “sassy” and extravagant, allowing nonblack users to harness and inhabit these images as an extension of themselves
GIPHY apologizes
According to a statement by Giphy, the sticker became part of the available options for Snapchat and Instagram users because of a bug in their content moderation filters. The company’s developers have fixed the bug to improve the moderation of their library. Giphy’s staff has also been tasked to view all the GIF stickers that will be available for any future integration with other platforms.
NO more GIFS?
Snapchat, for its part, acted right after the company was made aware. While the company does not bar returning the GIF functionality soon, Snapchat vowed to consider that only after Giphy has cleaned up the GIFs that are in its database.
According to TechCrunch, Snapchat issued a statement, pledging to make their platform "rated PG." This is so that content will be suitable even for the teenagers that are using Snapchat.
Instagram also already disabled their Giphy feature as they attempt to discuss with their partner on how to best avoid incidents like this from happening again in the future.
The Facebook subsidiary confirmed that these kinds of content are not something that will be normalized on their platform.
The glitch of the Giphy integration caused concerns among parents about the safety of the Messenger Kids app, which also uses Giphy for its GIF library.
Snapchat and Instagram Stories only launched their Giphy integration a few weeks ago. During its release, The Verge reported the addition of the feature to the two platforms, enabling users to put animated stickers on their multimedia messages.
