Microsoft initiates banning of April Fools’ Day pranks, says some of the pranks are mean and dangerous

April Fools’ Day prankscan sometimes be mean and have serious repercussions. Microsoft is taking steps to ban April Fools’ Day pranks in its corporate environment. Chris Capossela, Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer is taking April Fools’ Day seriously and has also warned all employees to not be involved in any displeasing pranks or hoaxes on Monday. “Data tells us these stunts have limited positive impact and can actually result in unwanted news cycles,” explains Capossela. “I appreciate people devotingtheir 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.”

Chris spreads the awareness within all the teams of Microsoft and informs the team members not to participate in any public-facing April Fools’ Day stunts. The company has observed certain pranks had backfired miserably in the past. A few years back on April Fools’ Day, Google had to apologize for attaching Despicable Me minions into emails and muting threads, which caused inconvenience and havoc in the Gmail users. Microsoft has also been a part of such public-facing pranks including Google insultsand an MS-DOS mobile for Windows Phone.

Such pranks have become a pretty common phenomenon in many top companies. In the era of social media, pranks can be mean, dangerous, derogatory, or may have other problematic consequences.