Google is reportedly canceling all of its April Fool’s Day jokes this year in wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
No-one is in the mood for jokes.
April Fool’s Day jokes may be a tradition they will not survive this year’s context. Execs at Google fear that pranks would appear to be in poor taste, according to an internal email obtained by Business Insider.
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“This year, we’re going to take the year off from that tradition out of respect for all those fighting the COVID-19 pandemic,” Google’s head of marketing Lorraine Twohill wrote in the email to Google managers. “Our highest goal right now is to be helpful to people, so let’s save the jokes for next April, which will undoubtedly be a whole lot brighter than this one.”
Twohill also reportedly requested that managers pause any smaller jokes within their departments planned for April Fools’.
There is no doubt other tech companies will follow Google’s lead.