Snapchat and Instagram have removed Giphy from their platforms, after the feature suggested an extremely racist GIF to users when they searched the word “crime”.
Both social media platforms removed the newly enabled feature after learning of the issue, and have vowed to only reinstate the GIF option when they’re sure it will not happen again, TechCrunch reports
Speaking to TechCrunch, Snapchat said that GIFs were supposed to be PG-rated to make them suitable for the youngest users allowed on the platform. The GIF in question clearly fell outside that boundary. A spokesperson for Instagram said: “This type of content has no place on Instagram. We have stopped our integration with Giphy as they investigate the issue.”
While the offending GIF has now been removed, a screenshot was captured by Lyauna Augmon who then shared the image on Twitter
Racial slur GIF
The GIF included a racial slur that read- “N**** Crime Death Counter Keep Cranking Bonzo, the Numbers Just Keep on Climbing!”. Notably, Giphy has now removed the offensive GIF.
As per Giphy community guidelines, this kind of objectionable content is prohibited but given Giphy works like a search engine to index the top GIFs on the web, this incident could be a slip-up.
