Google April Fools’ Day prank backfires

© Shutterstock – Asif Islam

Google prank gone wrong.

GOOGLE has inadvertently pranked themselves this year in their April fool´s joke aimed at users. 

The company has now removed a temporary Gmail button, which was supposed to send a comical animation to recipients, after reports of workers getting into trouble at work. 

The extra button briefly appeared beside Gmail´s normal send button and allowed users to complete an email thread by sending a short animation of a minion dropping a microphone. However a barrage of complaints flooded in from users trying to use the button. 

Google has now apologised and removed the feature. 

Google said in a statement, “It looks like we pranked ourselves this year,” 

“Due to a bug, the MicDrop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry.”

The idea behind the joke, the mic-drop, is well-known in memes and for digital aficionados and is a conclusive final statement or rebuttal. 

Some users have reported that they can still see the corrupt button but Google have said that once the page is reloaded it should now disappear. The technology giant was unable to confirm details of the bug but they did confirm that the button was not embedded on the accounts of business users.  

One angry user claimed the loss of a job thanks to the Google button. “Thanks to MicDrop I just lost my job,” 

“I am a writer and had a deadline to meet. I sent my articles to my boss and never heard back from her. I inadvertently sent the email using the MicDrop send button.”

Another complained that an important business email with the mic-drop feature had been sent to 30 accounts accidentally. 

Gmail was launched back in 2004 on April 1 and many people at the time believed the launch to be a prank. 

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