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Microsoft Says No to April Fool's Day

posted by martyb on Monday April 01 2019, @12:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the just-kidding! dept.

takyon writes:

Microsoft leads the way in banning April Fools' Day pranks

Everyone hates April Fools' Day, and Microsoft is taking a stand against its own corporate pranks. Microsoft's marketing chief Chris Capossela has warned all employees to not participate in the process of annoying hoaxes on Monday. In an internal memo, obtained and verified by The Verge, Capossela explains that "data tells us these stunts have limited positive impact and can actually result in unwanted news cycles." He encourages all teams inside Microsoft not to do any public-facing April Fools' Day stunts.

"I appreciate that people may have devoted time and resources to these activities, but I believe we have more to lose than gain by attempting to be funny on this one day," says Capossela. That's probably a safe bet, as we've seen some April Fools' Day pranks backfire spectacularly in the past. Google was forced to apologize for adding Despicable Me minions into emails and muting threads a few years ago, causing email havoc for Gmail users. Microsoft has also participated in many April Fools' Day pranks over the years, including an MS-DOS mobile for Windows Phone and Google insults.

#FakeNews?

Also at BGR.

See also: Everyone Should Follow Microsoft's Lead in Banning April Fools' Day Pranks

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Monday April 01 2019, @07:34AM (2 children)

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 01 2019, @07:34AM (#822992) Journal
    Don't bother going if you use NoScript or similar - nothing to see at all. And 'No - I am not turning off NoScript!'
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 01 2019, @07:39AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 01 2019, @07:39AM (#822994) Journal

    Some of us can't afford NoScript in office environs. As a strange coincidence, that when one is most likely to land on stackexchange.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday April 01 2019, @09:53AM

    by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 01 2019, @09:53AM (#823007)

    Though the CSS-based ugliness is still apparent without scripts.