Facebook – How to Upload Animated GIFs from Twitter

facebooktwitter

Animated GIFS on Twitter are great for capturing a meme. Downloading them is tricky, but can be done by reading the HTML source or using an external tool.

The problem I have is, whenever I upload an animated gif to Facebook, it fails to animate, only showing the first frame.

My question is: How do I upload animated gifs from Twitter onto Facebook?

Best Answer

Twitter generates an mp4 for an animated GIF, so you can upload it as a video to Facebook.

e.g. via the API

https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/show.json?id=479307198901026816

      "variants": [
        {
          "bitrate": 0,
          "content_type": "video/mp4",
          "url": "https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/BqbXWaHIYAEciGo.mp4"
        }

So you can upload this

Related Solutions

Facebook – How to post animated GIFs on Facebook

May 2015

http://mashable.com/2015/05/29/facebook-gif-support/

The first thing to keep in mind is that the feature works with GIF links, not GIF uploads. At least for now, attempting to upload your favorite GIF will not result in a usable, playable GIF on Facebook.

[...]

Services such as Giphy, Imgur, GFYcat and others are trying to make it easier to embed large GIFs all over the web

[...]

make sure you're using the full GIF url from Giphy or other GIF services.

April 2012 - Current Exploit uses the mobile text application to pass images

http://www.facebook.com/connect/uiserver.php?app_id=2915120374
&method=stream_publish
&redirect_uri=http://www.facebook.com
&from=SENDERID
&target_id=RECEIVERID
&action_links=[{"text":"Your Text Here",
                "href":"http://www.blank.com/"}]
&attachment={'media':[{'type':'image',
                       'src':'animationurl',
                       'href':'anyurl'}],
             'description':'LongDescription',
             'properties':{'Anything':{'text':'Anything',
                                       'href':'anyurl'}}}

The only thing really needed is the animationurl, which needs to be a Facebook hosted image.

These are the ways that were previously possible

Changing filename to GIF
Changing file dimensions to around 120 px to bypass compression
Changing header data or adding bytes (example the ending 3B in the GIF data) to the end of the file to bypass Facebook image tools
Via Facebook FBML
Via Facebook HMTL tags in notes

The first working way seems to be somehow sharing the currently available set of gifs on Facebook servers via tagging users in it. I have not seen any new GIFs appear apart from those that currently circle around.

The second utilizes an abuse of the Facebook API via a Facebook Application. The developer hid the GIFs in a video embed preview.

Developer application

Now, assuming one were to figure it out, you would be banned... because this means the image upload system is flawed and dangerous code can be executed by being concealed in a GIF or picture. It seems that Facebook Photo Team will ensure that GIFs do not stay around anymore.

Nathaniel Roman

Quora Image: That was a bug that was on the site for just a short period of time. It got fixed awhile back.

And previously in the old Facebook Dev Wiki some of this may have changed by now but the gist remains the same

Facebook Platform handles img tags in a special manner. When publishing a page, Facebook servers request any image URLs and then serves these images, rewriting the src attribute of all img tags using a *.facebook.com domain. This protects the privacy of Facebook's users and allows them to better control the quality of service of their images.

There are several reasons for the existence of the image cache:

We need a way to ensure some degree of quality and uniformity in the images displayed on users' profiles (no animated images, no 50 MB images, etc.)

We need to protect users' privacy and not allow malicious applications to extract information from image requests made directly from a viewing user's browser

Probably most important to you, the image cache shields developers from the potentially enormous load of serving these images, putting the burden on Facebook's resources instead

And in the end as I have mentioned elsewhere

Also although not stated anywhere in the TOS,

By uploading a file you certify that you have the right to distribute this picture and that it does not violate the Terms of Service

So you may get a pat on the back for testing on a Test User Account but using an exploit (if found) on a personal account. I am certain you will end up seeing a termination of your account.

_{P.S. Don't think because that when you are browsing sites that Facebook Employees do not see this information. The moment an exploit is known publicly, in the same amount of time it will be shut down}