Search icon

Business

01st Apr 2016

April Fail – Google’s April Fools’ Joke Went Terribly Wrong This Morning

People were fuming.

Ellen Tannam

It’s April Fools’ Day, a day for people who enjoy pranks to go absolutely hog wild.

In this digital age, it is more often brands and companies that try their hand at being gas, and Google is one of them.

However, their foray into this world today did not pay off for the corporate giant who had to remove their prank attempt from Gmail after just a couple of hours.

Engadget reported the company had to remove a fake ‘feature’ called Mic Drop which added a secondary send button that would then send a gif to all participants in the email thread, and then mute the thread so the sender couldn’t view any of the replies.

Unfortunately, many people tried to use it without knowing what would happen and the Gmail Help Forum lit up with people giving out, including people who said they lost their jobs due to the feature.

Screen Shot 2016-04-01 at 11.06.31

(via Gmail Help Forum)

“Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.”