The social network finally gives in to what the people really want.
The GIF is alive and well, folks, and it appears Facebook has finally caught on to its ubiquity. The social network is officially exploring its relationship with these animated images. It will soon begin testing the ability to add GIFs to comments in your feed.
In an email to TechCrunch, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the addition of animated GIFs:
Everyone loves a good GIF and we know that people want to be able to use them in comments. So we’re about to start testing the ability to add GIFs to comments and we’ll share more when we can, but for now we repeat that this is just a test.
Those of you with poor internet connections or slower computers, you don’t have to worry too much. Facebook won’t allow embedded GIFs in the main feel; they’ll be ostensibly limited to use as reactions to main posts. The company wants to avoid the images become distractive, or disruptive to the main news feed.
But at the same time, the ability to comment on posts with an animated GIF should have been implemented a while ago. Most mainstream messaging apps and services already support animated GIFs, and I bet you can’t go a few hours without someone dropping in an animated Imgur link. The GIF has no plans of leaving the internet anytime soon.
