April Fools’s Day: Google rolls back ‘Mic Drop’ feature after users’ backlash

“Accidentally hit this new mic drop button halfway through composing a professional email. Dying to remove this thing. Any help appreciated,” said one of the users.

Google had introduced the Gmail Mic Drop feature earlier, which allowed users to opt out of a conversation by dropping a mic. “Everyone will get your message, but that’s the last you’ll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won’t see it,” Google had said. However, it looks like the prank went horribly wrong, leaving many users fuming.

Read: April Fools’ Day: Now ‘drop the mic’ on any Gmail conversation

“Thanks to Mic Drop 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 “Mic Drop” send button.There were corrections that needed to be made on my articles and I never received her replies. My boss took offense to the Mic Drop animation and assumed that I didn’t reply to her because I thought her input was petty (hence the Mic Drop). I just woke up to a very angry voicemail from her which is how I found out about this “hilarious” prank,” wrote another user, who apparently lost his job, thanks to Google’s Mic Drop feature.

A Gmail users called ‘Gmail’s Drop Mic’ feature short-sighted April 1 joke. Check out his full tweet here:

I can’t believe how short-sighted Gmail’s “Drop Mic” April 1 joke is. It replaces the “Send+Archive” button, and attaches GIFs to sent mail.

— Andy Baio (@waxpancake) April 1, 2016

Google apologised for its mistake and wrote in a blog post, “Due to a bug, the Mic Drop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We’re truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page.”

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