Facebook builds support for animated gifs

Facebook has built support for GIFs into its social network this week. It is the first time that the American company allows the moving pictures on users’ timelines. There are, however, restrictions.

The Next Web reported Friday after a tip that Facebook has added the functionality to its service. To post gifs, users only need to post a link to an image. However, Facebook does not allow users to upload GIFs to the site for unknown reasons.

A page shows how the animated gif implementation of Facebook works in practice. The Next Web notes that the functionality doesn’t seem to work everywhere yet. This suggests that Facebook is currently rolling out the feature.

It is the first time since the founding of Facebook that the American company allows massive moving images on its site. Previously, this was already possible in the form of unofficial workarounds. The Giphy service, among others, offered a solution for placing gifs. Besides Facebook, YouTube also experimented with animated gifs.