Hey all, just poking into this thread to let you know that because we're using an image caching service to serve up unsecured images (that is, images linked from sites that start with http: instead of https:), animated gifs won't work if they aren't from secured sites.
If you want to link to an animated gif, please either make sure the link starts with https, or else it will only show a static image of the first frame. Many image hosting sites (imgur, photobucket, etc.) allow either http: or https:, so if you're trying to link an http: image, try replacing it with https: instead.