Those images can, as L1ght claims, be found on public search engines using hashtags that also lead to more explicit content elsewhere on the web. L1ght cites problems not just on social media, but also in games popular among teens and children, such as Fortnite and Minecraft.įortune was able to independently confirm that, at the time of reporting, Giphy does host sexualized images of girls appearing under the legal age of consent. In early 2019, it was discovered that Instagram was being used to share links to private troves of child sexual imagery hosted on Dropbox. Facebook Messenger was responsible for nearly two-thirds of the 18.4 million worldwide reports of child exploitation images made in 2018. Giphy has high-profile investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners and was valued at $600 million in 2016-the last time the private company raised money, according to Crunchbase.Ĭontent on Giphy is just one part of an accelerating epidemic of sexual images of children being spread online.

It also has an animated ‘sticker’ format that is integrated with Gen Z-centric platforms including Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch. They can be embedded both on web pages and in posts on platforms including Facebook, Twitter, iMessage, and Snapchat. The site hosts and plays looping, six-second clips in the GIF format (hence the name), often taken from films and television shows. Giphy isn’t quite a household name, but it is a nearly omnipresent part of the fabric of online social media. These images are hidden from most users and even from Giphy’s moderation, but can, L1ght claims, be accessed using obscure search terms in public search engines. L1ght claims that by following those breadcrumbs, its proprietary search tools and team of researchers unearthed a “seedy underbelly” of content on Giphy, including nude and sexually explicit images of children.

Ls child model photo