Instagram brings GIFs back to Stories with stricter moderation

Instagram was very quick to remove GIFs from Stories after it was discovered that Giphy — the company responsible for overseeing the GIF library — had let a racist image slip through. (Snapchat also removed GIFs as a result of the incident.) But now the ability to add GIFs to your Instagram Stories is being restored, according to TechCrunch.

Giphy removed the racist GIF sticker immediately after being alerted of its presence. “After investigation, a bug was found in our content moderation filters affecting stickers,” the company said. That bug has since been resolved, and Giphy claims it has re-moderated the entire GIF sticker library four times to be absolutely sure there’s no other inappropriate content. It’s also tightening future moderation as a result of this incident with “another level of Giphy moderation before each sticker is approved into the library. This is now a permanent addition to our moderation process.”

Instagram seems satisfied with those precautions and added measures. “We’ve been in close contact with Giphy throughout this process and we’re confident that they have put measures in place to ensure that Instagram users have a good experience.” The GIF stickers haven’t returned to my Instagram app just yet, but it shouldn’t be long before everyone can get back to including them in their stories.