Gifs depicting the much-loved character from the Mandalorian vanished, but were later reinstated

This article is more than 9 months old

This article is more than 9 months old

Meme and image-hosting site Giphy has apologised to Disney after pulling – and then reinstating – all gifs of The Mandalorian character nicknamed Baby Yoda from the internet this week.

The character from the new Disney+ flagship streaming series and Star Wars spin-off has been evoking the increasingly fervent love of the internet since the show’s US premiere on 12 November.

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Baby Yoda is not in fact Yoda, the ancient Jedi master that guided Luke Skywalker to the Force in the original Star Wars films, but The Child, an entirely different character, albeit from the same race of bug-eyed, bat-eared beings.

Fans have been swamping social media with memes and gifs featuring the character, and the hype quickly became mainstream. Twitter accounts dedicated to Baby Yoda sprung up, pulling tens of thousands of followers within days. “People can’t stop sharing Baby Yoda memes (and we don’t want them to),” shrieked a headline on CNN last week.

Disney, having kept the character’s existence under wraps until the show launched, then announced it would be rolling out a huge line of “Baby Yoda” merchandise in time for Christmas.

Graeme Moore (@MooreGrams) He protec. He atac. He also take nap.#BabyYoda pic.twitter.com/RN9N3pT6Mo

Baby Yoda (@BabyYodaBaby) Moves I have. pic.twitter.com/t6OTgRAUYI

But the hype backfired – albeit briefly – when the images disappeared from circulation late last week after they were blocked by Giphy, the service used to create them.

Disney was initially blamed by many fans for the intervention after Vulture magazine, which often publishes gif collections, reported on the image cull after its own posts on the gifs had been pulled.

The gifs have since reappeared – and the image-sharing site issued a statement apologising for what they called “confusion” around the images’ copyright status.

“Last week, there was some confusion around certain content uploaded to Giphy and we temporarily removed these Gifs while we reviewed the situation,” Giphy said in a statement. “We apologise to both Disney and Vulture for any inconvenience, and we are happy to report that the Gifs are once again live on Giphy.”

Images in gifs are widely understood to fall under the “fair use” exception in US copyright law.