Facebook Is Buying GIPHY For $400 Million

All your GIFs are belong to Zucc.

Facebook has agreed to buy GIPHY, the popular GIF-making and sharing website, for a $400 million. According to Axios, the social media giant plans to integrate GIPHY with Instagram.

GIPHY says that they welcome more than 700 million people every day and that its users share 10 billion pieces of content every day. Facebook, which already uses the GIF-company in its apps, says that half of those users come from Facebook's apps and half of that coming from Instagram.

"We’ve used GIPHY’s API for years, not just in Instagram, but in the Facebook app, Messenger and WhatsApp," said Vishal Shah, VP of Product, in a blog post. "GIPHY will continue to operate its library (including its global content collection), and we’re looking forward to investing further in its technology and relationships with content and API partners.

"People will still be able to upload GIFs; developers and API partners will continue to have the same access to GIPHY’s APIs; and GIPHY’s creative community will still be able to create great content."

GIPHY also expressed excitement to join the Instagram team. In a Medium post, the company made a statement about the sale. It reads:

GIPHY has been acquired by Facebook and is joining the team at Instagram. Instagram has revolutionized self-expression. More than 1 billion people use Instagram to communicate how they’re feeling and what they’re passionate about -- we can’t wait to help those people become even more animated! We’ve had a lot of fun teaming up with Instagram over the years; GIPHY’s Stickers were the perfect fit for layering on Instagram Stories, while our GIF search allowed everyone to capture that perfect emotion in Instagram’s DMs. Based on the success of those collaborations (and many others) we know that there are exciting times ahead of us.

Some are less enthused about the sale. Online, people have begun sharing concerns that Facebook could censor anti-Zuckerberg memes on the site, while others see it as a problem for using GIPHY on other sites like Twitter.

It didn’t take long for Facebook to ruin Giphy. pic.twitter.com/4bXyC6ZWEe

— Stephen Hackett (@ismh) May 15, 2020

Zuckerberg buying Giphy knowing fully well that Giphy and gifs are more of a thing on Twitter than on Facebook pic.twitter.com/riKM1HqqG6

— Big Odun Energy (@OdunEweniyi) May 15, 2020

Facebook to buy Giphy for $400M in meme format, colorized (2020) pic.twitter.com/WRWkzqtMe0

— Ramp X Æ A-12 (@RampCapitalLLC) May 15, 2020

Waking up to Facebook buying off Giphy, safe to say i will distrust GIFS now🤣 just as much as i do not trust Mark Zuckerberg and his "privacy" terms.

— Jamie Hurst (@jamiehurst777) May 15, 2020

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg has now acquired the GIPHY infinity stone (for $400M). pic.twitter.com/sfprFQzuF7

— NUFF 🇹🇹 (@nuffsaidny) May 15, 2020

me when I realize my actions are available in GIF form on @GIPHY so I buy the company and scrub it from the website pic.twitter.com/ETatK8Y7uJ

— Amber Discko (@amberdiscko) May 15, 2020