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Microsoft IT Technology

Microsoft Memo Bans April Fools' Day Pranks (theverge.com) 130

Posted by msmash from the enough-is-enough dept.
Everyone hates April Fools' Day, and Microsoft is taking a stand against its own corporate pranks. From a report: 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, 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.
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Microsoft Memo Bans April Fools' Day Pranks More

Microsoft Memo Bans April Fools' Day Pranks

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  • Thanks for the heads up (Score:4, Informative)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @11:42AM (#58341894)

    Almost forgot April 1st as a thing was coming up, nice to be mentally fortified.

  • Project much? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Syphonius ( 11602 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @11:44AM (#58341916) Homepage

    "Everyone hates April Fools' Day"

    Nice projection there. I'll make sure to align my thinking patterns with yours in the future.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )

      Reporters hate it since they complain they can't tell when something is real. To me this just suggests that maybe they aren't actually familiar enough with the industry or companies they cover otherwise they'd know which ones are "pranks".

      To me the best "prank" was Toshiba announcing a stereoscopic 3d monocle.

    • I'm guessing it goes further than that...likely as not, they're afraid someone will do an April Fools joke that rubs someone the wrong way and be even slightly non PC.....

      It's sad that almost everyone these days is looking to be a victim, and just waiting for an excuse to be offended and cause a ruckus.

      It seems we just can't have fun things anymore....simple April Fools joke....jokes in general, and hell, you remember when office Xmas parties were fun and not only served booze, but were also "open bar"?

      I

      • It all depends on the context. In the context of something that does no harm to anyone, those can be fun pranks.

        But as the story points out, sometimes there is unintended harm.

        It is potentially a major issue when these "undocumented features" show up elsewhere. There were several fun "undocumented features" like the excel flight simulator, and the names of volcanoes in the Microsoft screen saver. But for some organizations, like military organizations that rely on the software, undocumented features a

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Yeah. Except that you have to go massively out of your way to activate these Easter Eggs. So the chances of them accidentally happening "in the emergency room or nuclear control system" are slim to none.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I doubt real security engineers consider easter eggs to be a legitimate security nightmare. The useless compliance and auditing people who spent decades screwing the pooch up until equifax... they might stress the security concerns of easter eggs because they're not fun people and it's a talking point they can understand and harp on with no risk of exposing their ignorance.... like with pretty much every technical security concern.

          Before you spit out a 15 year anecdote.. yes I know easter eggs have indeed

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        I'm guessing it goes further than that...likely as not, they're afraid someone will do an April Fools joke that rubs someone the wrong way and be even slightly non PC.....

        Well of course they are worried about being non PC. They make Windows!

        Though I guess that joke doesn't work so well in this day and age, what with Macs using "PC" hardware and Windows being ported to non-"PC" hardware.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by havana9 ( 101033 )
          Macintosh and Apple II are PC, personal computers, to be nitpicky. Of course Windows doesn't run on AS400 mini or S/360 mainframes.
          Note to myself: prepare the VMS prank and dust off the VT220 and the Microvax II before April 1st

    • Re:Project much? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dissy ( 172727 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @01:57PM (#58342898)

      "Everyone hates April Fools' Day"
      Nice projection there.

      If you don't hate April fools, you are probably part of why everyone hates April fools :P

  • Yeah, right... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @11:46AM (#58341924)
    This memo sounds like an elaborate April Fool's Day prank to me!
    • Like telling people inclined to engage in a little mischief is going to stop them. If anything this will just egg them on even more, but maybe that means that they'll work harder to come up with higher quality pranks. I think a great prank would be to prank the person who started this memo by pretending to be Microsoft customers annoyed over non-existent pranks. Basically make this person run around and yell at people all day for things they didn't actually do.

      • The memo isn't to prevent those people from engaging in pranks. It's to make it clear that pranks violate company policy, making it easier to fire anyone who goes to far.

  • April Fools Day Cancelled (Score:4, Funny)

    by Oswald McWeany ( 2428506 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @11:47AM (#58341934)

    April Fools Day has been cancelled this year and will instead be held on May 1st.

  • Humor is another casualty of modern times (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @11:50AM (#58341966)

    "I believe we have more to lose than gain by attempting to be funny on this one day," says Capossela.

    Spot on. In today's victimhood culture any attempt at humor is extremely dangerous.

    I recently went to a local stand up show and almost all performances were extremely bland (or about Trump), because joking about anything controversial is just too dangerous with SJW Stasi everywhere.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Generation Feels they should be called.

      • Re:Humor is another casualty of modern times (Score:4, Interesting)

        by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @12:18PM (#58342138)
        It's not really the whole generation, and not everyone acting that way is from this newer generation either. The problem is that the harpies that piss in everyone else's root beer float have moved to social media where they can harangue and harass anyone in numbers that were previously not possible when in meat space. Most of this younger generation revile these people, but fear their rebuke. People just need to learn to ignore them like we eventually realized that the moralizing old church ladies were toothless gits which a much bigger bark than bite.

    • Re:Humor is another casualty of modern times (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @12:06PM (#58342060) Homepage Journal

      Spot on. In today's victimhood culture any attempt at humor is extremely dangerous.

      I recently went to a local stand up show and almost all performances were extremely bland (or about Trump), because joking about anything controversial is just too dangerous with SJW Stasi everywhere.

      I feel the same way.

      I wish we could bring back George Carlin and Richard Pryor.....

      We could really use their humor, cynicism and the fact they weren't scared of saying anything...

      I liked that Carlin,while fairly liberal, didn't hold punches on either side....I wish he'd been here through Obama and now Trump.

      We NEED comics and 'stand up philosophers' to get up there, and make us laugh at our leaders and the screwy things going on in society, and not be afraid of saying things that are controversial.

    • Or maybe giant corporations shouldn't play "pranks" on their customers.

    • Can you blame Capossela for being overly cautious? The last time Microsoft played an April Fool's joke they announced Windows 10 and they haven't been able to figure out a way to stop it yet.

    • I recently went to a local stand up show and almost all performances were extremely bland (or about Trump)

      I am of an age where I could give less than one fuck about other people's faux outrage. I should go to one of those open mic nights and trigger an entire room.

      Is nagger (forgot this word was censored) a powerful word again? Are Pollacks still a target? Or do I need to get more modern and attack an immigrant lesbian mother on welfare?

      Hm. I am no George Carlin but I think I can piss people off pretty good if I tried. This sounds like fun. :)

  • So, no pink-themed pages and unicorns over at microsoft.com ? No autocorrect jokes in their forum pages?

    Then again, I recall back in the 70s or 80s, a Boston-area TV weatherman announced that Great Blue Hills (a local not-very-tall mountain) had erupted, along with stock footage of some volcano. People panicked and he got fired.

  • It's gone too far. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I don't hate the pranks as much as I hate April 1 itself. The whole thing has gone too far, and you wind up questioning every new story the whole day. It's become a useless day for announcing anything slightly different. Nobody believed 1 gig Gmail boxes when they announced on April 1.

    • Re:It's gone too far. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by desdinova 216 ( 2000908 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @12:12PM (#58342096)
      maybe you should question every news story year round. It would probably help determine which news sources are more politically biased over others. (phrased so that it's not singling out one media outlet or political party)

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah I pretty much just avoid much of the web on 4/1 as every website becomes nigh useless. It's fun when it was one or two jokes for an entire site but when nearly every damn headline is a joke it just becomes tiring and annoying.

  • We can only hope /. doesn't fall in line with this anti-April 1 stance, because I usually spend that whole day reveling in hilarity at the high quality of posts.

  • I see you are trying to make an April Fools prank, would you like help with that ?

  • Probability of backfiring badly can't be lower than ... 0.99 ?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • [The beatings continue].... untl moral improves.

      I think that's a perfect solution to the immoral sociopathic behavior of most managers.

      Now, to improve morale, not so much.

  • Ba-dum TSSSS! ...I`ll get my coat.

  • Google Maps also gave us Mario Kart and Pokemon Go got April Fools in past years. When done RIGHT, it is a huge marketing boon!

  • A sign of the times. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @12:10PM (#58342086)

    The problem today, isn't that people don't have a sense of humor or that they are delicate snowflakes. But we are in an era of contradicting information, and where we have Flat Earthers, Anti-Vaxers, Anti-GMO, Climate Deniers, in general people who just don't want to accept well documented science, because it doesn't fit their world view, and they heard about these dangers from some random dude, who may or may not actually believe what they said, but was being sarcastic. I am sure if you dug in Slashdot History back in the 1990's there will be some comments from me, on topics about evolution, I had some sarcastic comments about the earth being flat and made some bizarre convoluted proof around it, as it is my natural sarcastic nature. However today, I am afraid to do this with the general public who doesn't know me. Because they will take my sarcasm out of context and use my "evidence" as proof in their head that it might be right.

    A joke like changing Slashdot pink, with ponies will no longer pass today. Because...
    1. It would be considered sexist: as implying that there are no women on Slashdot. Where before it was just considered a joke of making the site seem like it is for a different audience.
    2. Someone who liked the idea, will be annoyed to see it go, or assumed the site was for kids, only to have them exposed to much of Slashdot coarse comments.
    3. People new to the site, may assume it was a different site.

    • Summary: The problem today is not everybody thinks in the superior way that I do. If those who disagree with my worldview would just shut up, there would be no problem.

    • 1. Bitch
      2. Fuck you.
      3. This site doesn't cater to morons.
      4. Oh wait, you didn't do a 4 so there is nothing smartass to put here. *sigh* Next time. Maybe next time. ;)

  • Just like this one... [hoaxes.org]

    Ms. April Wurst received a few envelopes. Thank BMW Car and Driver for this...

    • Thank BMW Car and Driver for this...

      Call me stupid (many have) but is there any reason why that couldn't be implemented today?

      The more recent Mercedes SLK and SL models have "air scarf" as an option (to warm one's neck when the top is open) and I don't see any problem with the physics of what the hoax is suggesting. So... could this hoax actually turn into a real thing?

  • Every other release is a prank and the other one is the serious release. They broke the cycle with Windows 10 though releasing two pranks in a row.
  • Truthful, if you can't figure out what is real and what is not on April First. Don't worry about it, nobody knows what is real and what is not. On any other day, no matter what news web site you visit.

    Or, just say fuck it. And read the Onion all day. At least you know you will get a laugh as you read what you know for sure is Bull Shit.

  • It seems every year we get to hear the same sorts of objections to April Fool's Day: "People will take these things seriously" "How can I trust anything?" "We don't need people adding more disinformation to the internet, it will spread all over" All of these lead me to believe that the purpose of April Fools is more important than ever, because whether through inattention or naivete it seems a lot of people are overly credulous.

    I think maybe the issue is branding. I propose that we rename it "Critical Think

  • They are only banning *PUBLIC FACING* pranks.

    People still seem entirely welcome to prank their coworkers as they might otherwise do... but honestly, I think that this idea is actually entirely fair.

  • ...the memo is a prank by Microsoft to employees!
  • Are the ones being honored on said day. Ironic.

  • "Everyone hates April Fools' Day" HUH ? Who the fuck died and left you in charge asshole? Get the fuck outta here with your stupid fucking assumptions.

  • This is a meta april 1 email that got sent out three days too early.

  • Betcha Microsoft sends out another Memo on April 1st "recalling" this memo.

    Sometimes wonder how many MS exchange/outlook users realize what really happens when they push the magic recall button.

  • Never mind Microsoft (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2019 @02:12PM (#58343010)

    I don't want to be anywhere around Boeing next Monday.

  • It makes sense to me. What percentage of people either have poor judgement or aren't nearly as funny as they think they are? How many employees does Microsoft have? Doing the math seems to give a pretty good chance of someone doing something stupid that makes Microsoft look bad if left free to perform publicly visible pranks.

  • #OMGPONIES

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