Inside a GIF file, a palette can be redefined anywhere, and in between chunks of image data. Using that trick, you can pull 24-bit colour GIFs. There are two problems about it: most GIF editors don't use this trick, and it makes the GIFs grow significantly (50 MB GIF anyone?).

Raher than pushing an old technology, I'm surprised they didn't go for a better, modern alternative, like WebM.

On all 4chan boards, webms have pretty much completely replaced gifs.

We have other formats like animated pngs (and most browsers support them), but they don't seem that popular.

"256 colors ought to be enough for anybody"