Facebook now supports animated GIFs

Facebook has now introduced support for animated GIFs in the News Feed. According to The Verge, not everyone will be able to avail the functionality immediately as the update is still rolling out. Users will have to paste a link to a GIF hosted on an external website like Giphy, Imgur, Tumblr, or elsewhere, into their status update box and then hit publish. The GIF will be animated inline after the post is published.

However, Facebook will not allow users to upload GIFs directly. The move marks a significant change in direction for Facebook, which has so far made a conscious decision to avoid supporting GIFs, claiming that it would make its News Feed 'too chaotic.'