Instagram chief: We didn’t buy Giphy for the data

• Adam Mosseri, the head of Facebook’s Instagram division, on Monday said that the $400 million acquisition of Giphy was not about acquiring the New York company’s user data.
• Most major company’s that tap into Giphy’s library of gifs use a proxy to limit how much access Giphy has into their user data, Mosseri said.
• At most, Giphy’s data will further help Instagram understand what topics are trending the world, Mosseri said.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Facebook’s Instagram division, said on Monday that the company’s $400 million acquisition of animated-gif company Giphywas not about acquiring user data.

“We bought GIPHY because it’s a great service that needed a home, they have an amazing team, and they have an expressive creator community, full stop,” Mosseri said in a series of tweets on Monday. “I was the sponsor of this deal, and data was not the motivation.

Most major companies that tap into Giphy’s library of gifs use a proxy to limit how much access Giphy has into their user data, Mosseri said. At most, Giphy’s data will further help Instagram understand what topics are trending the world, Mosseri said.

“Yes, data is valuable, but Giphy has little user data,” Mosseri said.

Instagram has been a key Giphy partner since January 2018 when the two companies struck a deal that allowed people to include Giphy’s gifs in Instagram Stories.