According to TechCrunch, the GIF in question included a racial slur about African Americans and made disparaging comments about crime within minority communities.
While the user who originally spotted the GIF said it appeared on Snapchat, another user later found it on Instagram, too.
Giphy told TechCrunch that the offensive image appeared because of a software bug. The service said it would re-moderate all of its GIF stickers by hand to ensure there was not other objectionable content available for users.
"We take full responsibility for these recent events and sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended," the company added.