Reader TTS

Instagram and Snapchat have temporarily removed the Giphy sticker feature from their platforms after a user discovered a racist GIF, which could be added to a story. The GIF reportedly

appeared when a user searched for the word “Crime”. Instagram and Snapchat have temporarily removed the Giphy sticker feature from their platforms after a user discovered a racist GIF, which

could be added to a story. The GIF reportedly appeared when a user searched for the word “Crime”. A 21-year-old Snapchat user from England first spotted the racist animation in the library.

She posted a screenshot of the offensive image and tagged Instagram founder Kevin Systrom. The GIF included text of a racial slur – N**** Crime Death Counter – Keep Cranking Bonzo, the

Numbers Just Keep on Climbing! The GIF "appears to suggest that millions of deaths are caused by black people committing crimes with a number counter continually rising". > This

 blatant RACISM @instagram @kevin is unacceptable. When you > search 'crime' for gifs, a "Nigger crime death counter" appears with > a MONKEY cranking it & a 

white guy telling the "bonzo" to watch the > numbers #Instagram #blacklivesmatter @TheAffinityMag REMOVE & > APOLOGIZE NOW pic.twitter.com/dOnJFBcHCW > — Lyauna Augmon

 (@LyaunaAugmon) March 7, 2018 In conversation with TECHCRUNCH, a Snapchat spokesperson stated that the company is very sorry. “The Giphy community guidelines prohibit this kind of

objectionable content in the first place, but since it works like a search engine that indexes the top GIFs on the web, things can slip through,” added the report. An Instagram spokesperson

tells TechCrunch “This type of content has no place on Instagram. We have stopped our integration with Giphy as they investigate the issue.” The company confirms the change has been made but

might take some time to propagate to all users. Giphy also provided a statement to TechCrunch and stated, “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.” Both Instagram and Snapchat have opted to disable integration with the service—just weeks after adding it.

Both platforms had introduced the feature in February that allows users to include GIFs from the media repository Giphy in their snaps and "Stories".